A cookie is a very small text document, which often includes an anonymous unique identifier. When you visit a website, that site’s computer asks your computer for permission to store this file in a part of your hard drive specifically designated for cookies. Each website can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser’s preferences allow it, but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a website to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other sites.

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

About Cookies

A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server.

Cookies may be either “persistent” cookies or “session” cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed.

Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.

Cookies That We Use

We use cookies for the following purposes:

  • authentication – we use cookies to identify you when you visit our website and as you navigate our website (cookies used for this purpose are: xsessionid);
  • status – we use cookies to help us to determine if you are logged into our website (cookies used for this purpose are: xsessionid);
  • part list – we use cookies to maintain the state of your part list as you navigate our website (cookies used for this purpose are: xsessionid);
  • part list history – we use cookies to maintain the list of changes to your part list as you navigate our website (cookies used for this purpose are: xsessionid);
  • personalisation – we use cookies to store information about your preferences and to personalise our website for you (cookies used for this purpose are: xsessionid, theme);
  • security – we use cookies as an element of the security measures used to protect user accounts, including preventing fraudulent use of login credentials, and to protect our website and services generally (cookies used for this purpose are: xsessionid, xcsrftoken);
  • analysis – we use cookies to help us to analyse the use and performance of our website and services (cookies used for this purpose are: xsessionid, __utma, __utmb, __utmc, __utmt, __utmv, __utmz); and
  • cookie consent – we use cookies to store your preferences in relation to the use of cookies more generally (cookies used for this purpose are: xgdpr-consent).

Cookies Used By Our Service Providers

Our service providers use cookies and those cookies may be stored on your computer when you visit our website.

We use Google Analytics to analyse the use of our website. Google Analytics gathers information about website use by means of cookies. The information gathered relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of our website. Google’s privacy policy is available at: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/.

Managing Cookies

Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies and to delete cookies. The methods for doing so vary from browser to browser, and from version to version. You can however obtain up-to-date information about blocking and deleting cookies via these links:

  • https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95647?hl=en (Chrome);
  • https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-and-disable-cookies-website-preferences (Firefox);
  • https://www.opera.com/help/tutorials/security/cookies/ (Opera);
  • https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/17442/windows-internet-explorer-delete-manage-cookies (Internet Explorer);
  • https://support.apple.com/kb/PH21411 (Safari); and
  • https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10-microsoft-edge-and-privacy (Edge).

Blocking all cookies will have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites.

If you block cookies, you will not be able to use all the features on our website.