Cookie Policy
This page lists every cookie and storage key Burrows Tools can put on your device, what each one is for, and how long it lasts. The list is short, because the site needs no cookie to work.
This is a general informational document, not legal advice.
Last updated:
The short version
- The site sets no cookie in order to function. Nothing breaks if you block all of them.
- Google Analytics sets two, to measure usage. They are the only cookies here that follow you around the site.
- The cookie checker at /cookies-status writes one throwaway cookie, on that page only, and deletes it a moment later. That is the tool doing its job.
- Cloudflare Web Analytics, the site's second analytics service, is cookieless.
- Nothing you paste, type or open in a tool is stored in a cookie, in local storage, or anywhere else.
1. The cookies
| Name | Set by | Purpose | Duration | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| _ga | Google Analytics, from this domain | Distinguishes one browser from another so repeat visits are not counted as new people. | 2 years | Analytics |
| _ga_DBB4CEMM4S | Google Analytics, from this domain | Holds session state for this specific measurement property — session number and start time. | 2 years | Analytics |
| burrows_tools_cookie_test | Burrows Tools, only on the cookie checker page | The check itself: written, read back, then deleted, to prove whether your browser really accepts cookies rather than trusting a flag. It carries a timestamp and nothing else. | 60 seconds, and deleted immediately after the check | Functional |
| __cf_bm, cf_clearance | Cloudflare, at the network edge | Cloudflare's bot management and challenge clearance. Set only if Cloudflare's protection decides a request needs checking; ordinary page loads did not receive either when this page was written. | __cf_bm: 30 minutes. cf_clearance: up to a year | Strictly necessary (security) |
Durations for the Google cookies are the defaults Google documents for Google Analytics 4; they are set by Google's tag, not by this site, and Google can change them. The authoritative description is Google's own cookie usage reference, and Cloudflare documents its cookies at developers.cloudflare.com.
2. Local storage (not cookies)
Local storage stays on your device and is never transmitted with a request, so it is not a cookie — but it is still something this site writes, so it is listed here. Two keys, both first-party:
| Key | Purpose | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| burrows_tools_cookie_notice | Remembers that you dismissed the cookie notice at the bottom of the page, so it does not come back on every visit. | Until you clear this site's data |
| burrows_tools_storage_test | Written and removed again by the cookie checker to find out whether local storage is usable at all. It holds the character “1” for the moment it exists. | Removed immediately; never persists |
Nothing else is written. The site uses no session storage, no IndexedDB, and no cache of your content — your input lives in the page's memory while you are using a tool and is gone when you close the tab.
3. The analytics that sets nothing
Cloudflare Web Analytics runs on this site alongside Google Analytics. Its beacon is injected at Cloudflare's edge from static.cloudflareinsights.com, and it is cookieless by design: it sets no cookie, writes nothing to local storage, and does not build a device fingerprint to recognise you later. It reports page views and Core Web Vitals, and that is all.
4. What the notice at the bottom does
The small notice at the bottom of the page is a disclosure, not a gate. Analytics load with the page whether or not you have dismissed it, and dismissing it records nothing except that you dismissed it — it is not a consent record and it is not sent anywhere.
That is stated plainly rather than dressed up, because the alternative — a banner that says "Accept" while the tags have already fired — is the thing this page exists to avoid. If you would rather the analytics did not run, the next section is how to stop them, and it works regardless of anything you click here.
5. How to clear or block them
Every browser can clear cookies for one site, block them for one site, or block third-party cookies everywhere. Blocking everything on this domain costs you nothing: no tool depends on a cookie, and the site has no login to keep you signed in to.
- Chrome — Settings, Privacy and security, Third-party cookies; or the icon beside the address bar for this site alone.
- Firefox — Settings, Privacy & Security; Enhanced Tracking Protection blocks analytics trackers by default.
- Safari — Settings, Privacy; Intelligent Tracking Prevention is on by default.
- Edge — Settings, Cookies and site permissions.
- Google publishes a browser add-on that opts you out of Google Analytics on every site at once.
- Any content blocker that filters analytics domains will stop both tags before they load. Nothing on this site detects or objects to one.
Clearing this site's data also removes the two local storage keys above, which means the cookie notice will appear once more.
You can check the result yourself: /cookies-status writes a cookie, reads it back and tells you whether it worked.
6. Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control
The site does not currently act on the DNT or Sec-GPC headers. Saying so is more useful than claiming otherwise: neither header is honoured by the Google tag, so a claim here would not change what happens. Global Privacy Control asks a site not to sell or share personal information, and the site operator does neither, so there is nothing for that signal to switch off — see the Privacy Policy.
7. Changes, and how this list is kept honest
The names in the tables above are read from the same constants the code uses, so renaming a key in the source renames it here. Cookies set by Google and Cloudflare are outside that guarantee — they are their products' cookies, and this page records what they were when it was last updated.
Questions, or something on this page that does not match what you observe in your browser? jaredsburrows@gmail.com.