A cookie is a small piece of data sent from a website and stored in a user's web browser while the user is browsing the website. When the user browses the same website in the future, the data stored in the cookie can be retrieved by the website to notify the website of the user's previous activity.

This site uses session cookies which are essential for the running of this website. It also uses a persistent cookie to remember that the user accepted cookies.

Session Cookie

A user's session cookie (also known as an in-memory cookie or transient cookie) for a website exists in temporary memory only while the user is reading and navigating the website. When an expiry date or validity interval is not set at cookie creation time, a session cookie is created. Web browsers normally delete session cookies when the user closes the browser.

Persistent Cookie

A persistent cookie will outlast user sessions. If a persistent cookie has its Max-Age set to 1 year, then, within the year, the initial value set in that cookie would be sent back to the server every time the user visited the server. This could be used to record a vital piece of information such as how the user initially came to this website. For this reason persistent cookies are also called tracking cookies.