Home/Cookie policy
Cookie policy
There are seven cookies on this site and we can tell you what all seven do. That felt like a reasonable bar to set, given we spend most of our time complaining about vendors who can't explain their own pricing.
What a cookie actually is
A small text file the site asks your browser to keep. When you come back, the browser hands it over, so we can remember something — that you're logged in, for instance, or that you already told us what you think of analytics. Some are set by us; a small number can be set by services we embed.
The full list
Essential — always on
These make the site work. We can't switch them off, and under the PECR rules they don't require consent because you can't have a login without them.
| Name | What it does | Lasts |
|---|---|---|
ccf_session | Keeps you logged in as you move between threads. | Session, or 30 days if you tick "remember me" |
ccf_csrf | Security token that stops other sites submitting forms as you. | Session |
cookieConsent | Remembers that you've made a choice, so we stop asking. | 12 months |
cookieConsentChoice | Remembers which choice you made. | 12 months |
The last two are stored in your browser's local storage rather than as classic cookies, but they do the same job so we've listed them here.
Analytics — off unless you say yes
| Name | What it does | Lasts |
|---|---|---|
ccf_pageview | Counts page views in aggregate so we know which guides get finished and which get abandoned halfway. No cross-site tracking, no advertising profile, IP addresses truncated before storage. | 24 hours |
We use this for exactly one decision: which pages to update next. The guides queue is largely built from it.
Functional — off unless you say yes
| Name | What it does | Lasts |
|---|---|---|
ccf_reading | Remembers your reading-width and text-size preference. | 6 months |
ccf_draft | Keeps an unfinished reply so you don't lose it if the tab closes. Stored locally in your browser, never sent to us until you post. | 7 days |
Third-party bits
Two things on this site come from elsewhere:
- Google Fonts serves the typefaces. It doesn't set cookies, but the request tells Google your IP address.
- The embedded map on our contact page is served by Google Maps and may set its own cookies once it loads. If you'd rather it didn't, don't scroll to it — or read our address in the footer instead, which is the same information without the iframe.
There are no advertising cookies, no social media pixels, no session recording, no heatmaps and no affiliate tracking anywhere on this site. We've checked, twice, because someone in the forum asked us to prove it.
Changing your mind
Three ways:
- Clear this site's cookies and local storage in your browser and reload — the banner will reappear and you can choose again.
- Use your browser's controls to block or delete cookies for this domain. Guides: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge.
- Email us at [email protected] and we'll walk you through it.
Blocking the essential cookies will break login and the forum will forget who you are on every page. Everything else you can turn off with no loss at all — the site is designed to work perfectly on essentials only.
Changes to this policy
If we add a cookie, it goes in the table above and the date at the top changes on the same day. If we ever add one that needs consent, the banner will reappear and ask you properly.
Still curious?
The privacy policy covers what we do with data generally, including your UK GDPR rights and the short list of processors we use.
Ask us about cookies → Privacy policy