What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files that a website stores on your computer or mobile device when you visit the site.
They make your online experience easier by saving browsing information. With cookies, sites can keep you logged in, remember your site preferences and give you personalized content.
Cookies can also be used to establish statistics about the browsing experience and to show target ads.
Types of cookies
In general, cookies can be classified by:
- Provenance:
- First-party cookies are issued by a website that a user views directly
- Third-party cookies are not created by the website being visited, but by a third party like Google Analytics, DoubleClick, Facebook, Prefinery, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, Vimеo, etc.
- Duration:
- Session cookies which is erased when the user closes the browser
- Persistent cookies which remain on the user device for a some period of time
- Purpose:
- Strictly necessary cookies are required for website to work properly
- Preferences cookies allow a website to remember choices you have made in the past
- Statistics cookies help website owner to collect statistic data and understand how visitors interact with website
- Marketing cookies track user's online activity to help advertisers deliver more relevant ad. These are almost always third-party persistent cookies
Consent to use cookies
Many jurisdictions require that website owners obtain opt-in user consent before using cookies that are not strictly necessary. This is needed to be GDPR compliant and you give such consent when you click on the corresponding button of the cookie consent banner. If you refuse, cookies will not be set.