What’s a cookie?
- A “cookie” is a piece of information that is stored on your computer or device and which records how you move your way around a website so that, when you revisit that website, it can present tailored options based on the information stored about your last visit.
- Cookies can also be used to analyze traffic and for advertising and marketing purposes.
- Cookies are used by nearly all websites and do not harm your system.
Granting us permission to use cookies
If the settings on your software that you are using to view this website (on your browser or device) are adjusted to accept cookies we take this, and your continued use of our website, to mean that you are fine with this. You simply need to click the OK button on the cookie notice.
Should you wish to remove or not use cookies from our site you can learn how to do this below, however doing so will likely mean that our site will not work as you would expect.
How do we use cookies?
- Our website uses cookies, as almost all websites do, to help provide you with the best experience we can.
- We also use cookies to track anonymous use and any patterns of use of our website. This enables us to understand how users interact with the website and helps us to develop and improve it. It also helps us to improve products and / or services in response to what you might need or want.
Cookies are either:
- Session cookies: these are only stored on your computer during your web session and are automatically deleted when you close your browser – they usually store an anonymous session ID allowing you to browse a website without having to log in to each page but they do not collect any personal data from your computer; or
- Persistent cookies: a persistent cookie is stored as a file on your computer and it remains there when you close your web browser. The cookie can be read by the website that created it when you visit that website again. We use persistent cookies for Google Analytics.
Cookies can also be categorized as follows:
- Essential cookies: These cookies are strictly necessary to enable you to use the website effectively, such as when buying a product and / or service, and therefore cannot be turned off. Without these cookies, the services available to you on our website cannot be provided. These cookies do not gather information about you that could be used for marketing or remembering where you have been on the internet.
- Performance cookies: These cookies enable us to monitor and improve the performance of our website. For example, they allow us to count visits, identify traffic sources and see which parts of the site are most popular.
- Functionality cookies: These cookies allow our website to remember choices you make and provide enhanced features. For instance, we may be able to provide you with news or updates relevant to the services you use. They may also be used to provide services you have requested such as viewing a video or commenting on a blog. The information these cookies collect is usually anonymized.
Our cookies help us:
- Make our website work as you’d expect
- Remember your settings during and between visits
- Improve the speed/security of the site
- Continuously improve our website for you
- Make our marketing more efficient (ultimately helping us to offer the service we do at the price we do)
We do not use cookies to:
- Collect any personally identifiable information (without your express permission)
- Collect any sensitive information (without your express permission)
- Pass data to advertising networks
- Pass personally identifiable data to third parties
First Party (our own) cookies
We use cookies to make our website work including enabling contact forms. There is no way to prevent these cookies being set other than to not use our site.
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
Third party functions
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Disabling these cookies will likely break the functions offered by these third parties.
How to control and delete cookies
You can set up your browser or device to delete or refuse some or all cookies, or to notify you when a cookie is issued (you can then choose whether or not to accept it). You may also delete or refuse, some or all of the cookies, on our website at any time. However, if you do delete some or all your cookies, this may turn off some features on our website and your experience on our website may be affected.
Unless you adjust your browser settings to delete or refuse cookies, cookies will be issued or reissued when visit our website.
If you change your mind to allow cookies, you can change your browser or device settings and continue using our website.
To help you manage cookies, the following popular web browser list (and links to third party information) are for cookie management:
Website Cookie Policy v1.0 (16th July 2021)
Related Links:
- Our Privacy Policy explains why we collect personal data, what we do with it, our legal basis for collection and information about your rights under data protection law.