Irritated geek Cookie Policy

Introduction

This is the cookie policy of the Irritatedgeek.com website (referred to as “we”, “us” or “our” in this policy).

Here at the Irritated geek, we value our privacy. We assume our readers value their privacy, too. Therefore, we don’t gather or save any personal information if we don’t have to.

The European GDPR law requires us to explain what cookies are, and being the kind of people who love a good explanation, we are only too happy to oblige. However, before you feel that you have to plough through the follow pages, you should know that, right now, we do not use any cookies. That will probably change in future and, when it does, we will change our policy and ask for your consent to use any non-essential cookies.

What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small text file that is used to store information on your device—computer, tablet or smartphone—whenever you visit a website, so that the site can recognise and remember you the next time you visit and present you with information customised to fit your needs. It is essentially an ID card for a specific website.

When you visit the website, the web server—the computer operating the website—creates a cookie with an ID that is unique to you and your device and sends it to your browser which stores it for future use. When you visit the site again, your browser sends the cookie back to the server which then knows what information to specifically serve you, such as which language and layout to use, or which products to offer.

If you visit several websites during one browser session, you will get several cookies placed on your device before you close your browser again.

What types of cookie are there?

There are 2 types of cookies; session cookies and persistent cookies.

Session cookies—aka in-memory cookies, transient cookies, non-persistent cookies—are temporary. They are not stored on your device but are saved in temporary memory (RAM). They only last for as long as you are browsing. Once you close your browser window, session cookies are deleted. Session cookies are generally essential for website functionality. For example, they can be used to:

temporarily remember that you are logged in on a site, so that you can browse other pages without having to keep login in
remember the items you added to a shopping cart as you browse different pages
hold the information you entered into a form while you navigate between pages, so that you don’t have to keep filling in the same information when you go back to that page
temporarily remember your preference settings, e.g. your language settings or the filters you applied to a search
keep a live chat session active while you navigate to another page, so that you don’t get ‘cut off’

Session cookies do not pose a significant security risk because they are deleted when you close your browser. As such, they do not require your permission to be set.

You can read more about session cookies on CookieYes.

Persistent cookies—aka permanent cookies, tracking cookies—expire on specific dates or after a specific length of time, explicitly defined in the cookie itself. Unlike session cookies, they are stored on your device and will remain there after you close your browser, until they expire or you choose to delete them. They often last for months or years and are activated each time you visit the website that created that particular cookie. They enable personalised experiences by, for example:

keeping you logged into your accounts on websites, so that you don’t have to re-enter your login credentials when you revisit the website after restarting your browser
storing your preferences for websites, such as language, font size and preferred layout, so that you don’t have to redo them when you revisit the website after restarting your browser
enabling advertisers to record information about your browsing habits over an extended period of time so that they can serve you personalised ads

Because of their nature, persistent cookies pose more of a security risk than session cookies and therefore require your permission to set.

You can read more about persistent cookies on CookieYes.

What do cookies do?

Cookies can be set by the website you are visiting or by other parties that the website has agreements with.

First-party cookies are set and controlled by the website that you are visiting. They are generally used to do things like collect analytics data, remember your browsing options and carry out other activities to improve your browsing experience.

Third-party cookies are issued by external services, often advertisers who provide targeted ads or providers who enable website operators to add elements to their site that they haven’t built and don’t operate themselves, such as social-media widgets, Google Maps elements or live chat options.

You can read more about first- and third-party cookies on Termly.

Cookies broadly fall into 4 operational categories: ‘strictly necessary’, ‘performance’, ‘functional’ and ‘advertising’.

Strictly necessary, aka essential or technical:

A type of cookie without which a website would not work. It enables services that you have explicitly requested, such as signing in for that session, adding items to a shopping cart and storing cookie consent choices.
It does not collect personally identifiable information about users and does not track their browsing habits.
It is usually a temporary cookie.
It does not require your consent.

Performance, aka analytics:

A type of cookie that is used to study activity on a website. It exists to enable website owners to understand user interactions with their site and improve the browsing experience.
It tracks user interactions with the site, such as counting the number of visitors and tracking how users navigate and interact with a website
It usually collects anonymous information, not identifiable personal information but, because it track things like return visitors and long-term trends, it is often a persistent cookie.
It requires your consent because it is not ‘strictly necessary’ for the basic function of the website.

Functional:

A type of cookie that improves your experience on a website.
A persistent cookie that remembers things like usernames and passwords so that you can stayed logged in across sessions, what your location is so it can provide you with localised options, what your site preference settings (e.g. language, display settings, customised filters) are, live chat choices and what you put in your shopping cart but didn’t buy the last time you were on the site.
It requires your consent because, like a performance cookies, it enhances the user experience but is not essential for core operations.

Advertising, aka tracking, targeting:

A type of cookie that is used to track your online activities and behaviour. It exists primarily so that third parties can target you with personalised ads and services.
It collects data like:
- personal (demographic) information such as your estimated age and gender, what your general location is, what language you use
- technical data: what device(s) and software you use
- behavioural data: what your interests seem to be based on the sites you visit and where you linger and which products you seem interested in based on past purchase behaviour (products you viewed, items you added to shopping carts, items you bought)
It requires your consent because it potentially involves sharing your data with third-party providers.

You can find more information about cookies on All About Cookies.

Which cookies do we use?

We currently do not use any cookies. Our website does not even have any functionality that requires us to use essential cookies.

We do not gather or save any personal information using cookies and we do not track your browsing habits.

Our contact form uses session storage. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information on that.

How do I manage my cookies?

Most browsers accept cookies automatically, but you can stop your browser from doing this by changing your cookie settings. You can usually find these settings in your browser’s ‘Settings’ or ‘Preferences’ menu, under ‘Privacy’ and/or ‘Security’.

Your browser generally allows you to:

accept all cookies
reject all cookies
block third party cookies or cookies from specific sites
see what cookies you’ve got and delete them individually
get a notification when a cookie is issued

You can use the following links for instructions on how to block cookies in popular browsers:

Note that if you choose to set your browser to block/delete all cookies from a website, you will lose any preferences you have set on that website, and you will probably lose some functionality.