Cookies Policy

So there is the rule that sites must explain their use of your cookies.

I have no clue what my site does with your cookies.

Well, sort of.

Cookies are used to set your preferred Theme style as chosen at the top of the right side navigation menu.

I also use Matomo to keep track of what pages are popular and what pages each visitor goes to. But only pages on this site. I can't tell where a visitor came from, or where they go when they leave. I can only see what pages here are viewed and then what page here they go to next, unless they go somewhere not part of my site.

If a visitor comes back within the time-limit of the cookie Matomo sets, then I can tell they are a return visitor. If the cookie is stale (expired) they look like a new visitor.

Depending on how your browser and software security is set, Matomo can tell me these things:

If your browser and software are set to most secure possible, then the only thing Motomo can tell is what pages were visited in what order and for how long. If you have security/cookies set to low, then all of the above is recorded in the visitor record. Different browsers have different levels of security for cookies, so different browsers behave differently. Some allow this info or that info, others allow different info. None allow anything more than listed above because Matomo doesn't ask for anything else.

When you leave the site, Matomo cannot tell where you went, only that you were on a page and then didn't go to another. If you leave in the same tab/window by clicking an outside link or entering a URL or clicking a link in your favorites or bookmarks or somewhere, then the page view time is how long you had my page open. If you close the tab/window, and after one hour no other page is opened in my site, the page view is calculated as the current average time that page is viewed.

I have no other software or server-side applets that use your cookies. If you have cookies turned off, then none of the above information is retrieved and you will always look like a new visitor seeing one page who then left.

The only other thing that you could call a tracker is the visitor globe you see on the far right at the bottom of the menu. As you can probably see, it doesn't exactly point right at your location. For me, it says I'm in the nearest big city, some thirty miles away. But if you live in a large city or other populated area, it may even be right. When I was in Chicago visiting a friend and viewed my site on my phone, it was right. When I was in a fairly large town visiting a relative, it said I was more than twenty miles away in a larger town. If your security is set high enough, the globe won't even show up for you at all, let alone show any kind of location for others who can see it.

I know there are pages that mess with IE. But pretty much only IE, so suffer. Most other browsers, pads and phones don't have the same issues and I'm not going to overhaul every page just to satisfy Microsoft.