Cookie Policy

Cookies and local storage are not the same thing

The distinction matters here, because most of what this site stores is the second kind.

A cookie is a small file your browser sends back to a server with every request to that domain. Cookies are the mechanism behind tracking, because the server sees them.

Local storage is a key-value store that lives in your browser and is never transmitted with requests. A server cannot read it. We use it for your theme choice, your favourites and your recent tools: preferences that are useful to you and of no interest to anyone else.

Because this site does its computation in your browser, we need far fewer cookies than a comparable server-based site. There is no session to maintain and no account to keep you signed in to.

Strictly necessary

These are set without consent because the site cannot function correctly without them. Under the ePrivacy Directive they are exempt from the consent requirement.

Name	Type	Purpose	Duration
yt_consent	First-party cookie	Remembers your cookie choice so the banner does not reappear on every page	180 days

That is the entire list. One cookie, whose only job is to record that you already answered the question.

Your preferences (local storage, never transmitted)

Key	Purpose	Duration
yt_theme	Light or dark theme	Until cleared
yt_favorites	Tools you have starred	Until cleared
yt_history	Recently opened tools, for the "recent" list	Until cleared
yt_subscribed	Records that you already subscribed, so the newsletter prompt stops appearing	Until cleared

These stay on your device. They contain preferences, not personal data, and clearing your browser data removes them. Note that yt_history stores which tools you opened: never the values you entered into them, which are not retained anywhere at all.

Analytics: consent required

Set only after you accept. Provided by Google Analytics 4.

Name	Provider	Purpose	Duration
_ga	Google	Distinguishes one browser from another for visit counting	2 years
_ga_<id>	Google	Maintains session state for GA4	2 years

We run analytics with IP anonymisation on and ad personalisation signals off. It tells us that a page was viewed and roughly where from. It cannot tell us what was calculated on that page, because those values never leave your browser.

Advertising: consent required

Set only after you accept. Provided by Google AdSense, which funds the site.

Name	Provider	Purpose	Duration
__gads	Google	Ad selection and frequency capping	13 months
__gpi	Google	Ad personalisation and measurement	13 months
IDE / DSID	Google (DoubleClick)	Ad serving, measurement and conversion attribution	Up to 13 months
test_cookie	Google	Checks whether your browser accepts cookies at all	15 minutes

Google, as a third-party vendor, uses these to serve ads based on your visits to this and other sites. Google's own description of how it handles data from partner sites is at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites, and the cookie list it maintains is at business.safety.google/adscookies.

Exact names may change as Google updates its products. The categories above (ad selection, frequency capping, measurement) describe what any such cookie is for.

How consent is handled

We implement Google Consent Mode v2. Before any Google tag loads, both analytics_storage and ad_storage are set to denied. Tags respect that default and do not write cookies until you choose otherwise.

Visitors in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland see a banner offering two options:

• Accept all: analytics and advertising cookies are permitted.
• Reject non-essential: neither is set. Only yt_consent remains, recording that answer.

Rejecting costs you nothing. No tool is gated behind consent, no feature is degraded, and no reminder nags you afterwards. We mention this explicitly because plenty of sites make the reject path deliberately worse, and we would rather you knew ours does not.

Controlling cookies yourself

Change your mind on this site

Clear the yt_consent cookie in your browser settings and reload. The banner will reappear and you can choose again.

Block cookies in your browser

• Chrome: Settings → Privacy and security → Third-party cookies
• Firefox: Settings → Privacy & Security → Enhanced Tracking Protection
• Safari: Settings → Privacy → Prevent cross-site tracking
• Edge: Settings → Cookies and site permissions

Opt out of personalised advertising

• Google Ads Settings: controls personalisation across Google's services
• aboutads.info: industry opt-out for participating vendors
• youronlinechoices.eu: the European equivalent

Blocking all cookies site-wide will also clear yt_consent, which means our banner will appear on each visit. That is a consequence of the blocking, not something we do deliberately.

What we do not use

For completeness, since their absence is unusual enough to be worth stating:

• No social media tracking pixels, no Meta pixel, no LinkedIn Insight, no TikTok pixel.
• No session recording or heatmap tools. Nobody is watching a replay of your mouse movements.
• No third-party CDN for our JavaScript. Our PDF, QR, barcode and cryptography libraries are served from this domain, so no outside party learns which tool you opened.
• No fingerprinting, and no attempt to identify you across sessions beyond what the Google cookies above do.

Changes

If we add or remove a cookie, this page changes and the "last updated" date moves. Related reading: our privacy policy, which covers the wider question of what data we hold and your rights over it.

Questions about anything on this page: hello@yourstools.com.