Cookies

What are cookies?

Cookies are small text files that are stored in your browser and are used by most websites, including this website, to help personalise your web experience. Some features on this website will not function if you do not allow cookies. You can learn more about cookies at: WhatAreCookies.com.

What cookies do we use?

Anonymous site visitors

1st-party cookies

The site will set one first party cookie:

complianceCookie

This cookie is strictly necessary. It is used to remember a user’s choice about cookies on your website. Where users have previously indicated a preference, that user’s preference will be stored in this cookie. An example of this cookie is

3rd-party cookies

The site sets no 3rd-party cookies

Logged-in users and site administrators

This websites supports the creation of user accounts. Users who have created an account may log in to the site and see content that is not available to users who are not logged in.

In addition to the cookies listed above, a number of session cookies are written when users who have a username and password for this site log in to the site.

WordPress_test_cookie (session cookie that checks whether cookies are enabled)
wordpress_logged_in_<HASH> (session cookie containing username in double-hashed form)
wp-settings-1 (session cookie that records your WordPress dashboard settings)
wpe-auth (session cookie that records the fact that you are logged in)

Session cookies expire immediately on logout and are deleted immediately on logout.

These cookies are strictly necessary and the site will not function without them. By creating a user account on this site you are deemed to have accepted that the site will write these cookies when you log in. It will not be possible for you to log in to the site and use the resources provided for site members without allowing these cookies to be written.

Google Analytics cookies

We use Google Analytics to analyse how visitors use our site in aggregate form. Google Analytics uses cookies to identify unique visitors and record how they use a website. It does not collect any personally identifiable information and does not track movements between different websites.

Google Analytics sets three cookies:

_ga (used to distinguish users and has an expiration of 2-years)
_gid (used to distinguish users and has an expiration of 24-hours)
_gat (used to throttle requests and has an expiration of 10-minutes)

These cookies are not strictly necessary. Site visitors may choose to deny these cookies by using whichever tool is provided or that they choose to use to manage cookie preferences. There will be no impact on site performance or behaviour.

You can “opt out” of Google Analytics cookies by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on to block Google Analytics on all websites, or you can configure your browser to block cookies.

Guidance on how to tell your browser not to write cookies can be found at the following links. Please note that Thinking Doing Talking Science is not responsible for the content of these sites, nor can we be held responsible for any changes to your computer should you choose to make the changes described in these links.

Instructions for Internet Explorer 7 & 8
Instructions for Interner Explorer 9
Instructions for Firefox
Instructions for Safari
Instructions for Chrome