What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files that a website stores on your computer or mobile device when you visit the site. They facilitate your online experience by saving your browsing information. Using cookies, sites can maintain access, remember user preferences, and offer personalized content. Cookies can also be used to establish statistics about the browsing experience and to show targeted advertisements.
Types of cookies
In general, cookies can be classified according to:
- Origin:
- First-party cookies are issued by a website visited directly by the user.
- Third-party cookies are not created by the visited website, but by a third party such as Google Analytics, DoubleClick, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, Vimеo, etc.
- Duration:
- Session cookies that are deleted when the user closes the browser.
- Persistent cookies that remain on the user's device for a certain period of time.
- Purpose:
- Strictly necessary cookies are required for the website to function properly.
- Preference cookies allow a website to remember choices made in the past by the user.
- Statistics cookies help the website owner collect statistical data and understand how visitors interact with the website.
- Marketing cookies track a user's online activity to help advertisers deliver more relevant ads. They are almost always persistent third-party cookies
Consent to use cookies
Many jurisdictions require website owners to obtain users' consent before using cookies that are not strictly necessary. This is necessary to be GDPR compliant and the user provides such consent when they click on the corresponding button on the cookie consent banner. In case of refusal, cookies will not be set.
How to manage cookie settings
Most web browsers allow you to manage your cookie preferences through your browser settings. You can set your browser to refuse cookies or to delete all cookies. Find out how to manage cookies on the most popular browsers: