Cookies and browser storage
No cookie is set before you answer the banner. Our own site application sets none at all, and the measurement and advertising tags start in a refused state: until you accept, Google stores nothing on your device. If you accept, the tags you allowed set the cookies listed below. Optional article checklists use local storage, described further down. Internal “Discover more” banners link to our own guides and load no tracker.
What a cookie is, briefly
A cookie is a small file a site stores in your browser so it can recognize the browser later — to keep you signed in, to count visits, or to follow you across sites for advertising. Local storage does something similar, without being sent back with every request.
What we use today
| Purpose | On this site today |
|---|---|
| Article checklists | Checked and unchecked states saved locally after you change a checkbox. No cookie |
| Measuring traffic, always on | Cloudflare Web Analytics: counts page views and page speed. No cookie, nothing stored in your browser |
| Measuring traffic, only if you accept | Google Analytics 4, loaded through Google Tag Manager. Sets the _ga cookies below |
| Advertising, only if you accept | A Google advertising tag, loaded through Google Tag Manager. Sets _gcl_au. No ad is displayed on the site today |
| Social sharing | Nothing. The share buttons are plain links; they load no third-party code |
Cookies Google sets, if you accept
Decline, and none of these exist. We checked the site with the choices refused: no cookie at all is created.
| Cookie | Set when | What it does | Who reads it |
|---|---|---|---|
_ga |
You accept measurement | Tells returning visits apart from new ones | |
_ga_5Z75B449WX |
You accept measurement | Keeps the state of the visit for that one measurement stream | |
_gcl_au |
You accept advertising | Records that you arrived from a Google ad, for attribution |
Their lifetime is set by Google, not by us — currently about two years for the _ga cookies and about 90 days for _gcl_au. Google may change those durations. To remove them, clear this site's data in your browser, as described below.
Our hosting provider still records each request in its server logs to serve pages and block attacks. That is not a cookie, and it is covered in our privacy policy.
Checklist storage in detail
- Name: keys beginning with
mt-checklist:, followed by the article path and checklist number. - Provider: MazeTrails, using your browser's local storage.
- Purpose: restore the checked states of the checklist you chose to use.
- Contents: a list of true/false values, not your name or email address.
- When saved: after you check or uncheck a box. Reading an article without using its checklist does not create a checklist entry.
- Retention: no automatic expiry. Values remain until you clear site data or your browser removes them.
- Sharing: values are not sent to our servers or synced between your devices by MazeTrails.
To remove saved checklist values, open your browser's privacy or site-data settings, find mazetrails.com, and clear its stored data. In this local preview, select the local site's address instead. Unchecking every box resets the visible checklist but still saves an all-unchecked entry.
Your choice, and how to change it
- The banner appears before any measurement or advertising tag is allowed to store anything. Until you answer, Google's tags run in a refused state.
- You can accept everything, decline everything, or open Manage and choose measurement and advertising separately.
- Declining keeps every guide readable. Nothing is hidden behind consent.
- Your answer is kept in your browser's local storage, under
mt-consent, so the banner does not come back at every page. It is not a cookie and it is not sent to us. - To change it later, use Cookie settings at the bottom of any page. The same panel reopens, showing your current choice, and saving it applies immediately.
- If you clear this site's data, the banner comes back and nothing is remembered.
- If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, the advertising tag stays refused even if you accept everything, and
_gcl_auis never set. Measurement is not affected by that signal.
MazeTrails is free to read, and we may add an ad network later to pay for it. If we do, this page is updated first, with the name of the company and what it does.
Links to other sites
When you follow a link to a booking site, that company sets its own cookies under its own policy. We have no control over them, and we receive nothing from them about you.
Managing cookies yourself
Every browser lets you block or delete cookies and local storage, usually under privacy settings. You can still read the guides if storage is blocked. Checklists will work during the current visit but may not remember your choices when you return.
Questions
Write to us through the contact page.