Connect with us

Cookie Policy

Why this page exists

This page lists the cookies WinAddons uses, explains the job each one does, and tells you how to refuse them. It is the companion to our privacy policy, which covers reader data more widely. In one sentence: we set very few cookies ourselves, the only cross-site tracking here comes from the advertising network that pays for the site, and every article remains readable with all non-essential cookies switched off.

What a cookie is, and what it is not

A cookie is a scrap of text a website hands to your browser with a request to send it back next time. Ours mostly carry a random identifier and nothing else, which is enough to recognise a browser it has seen before: to remember a setting, or to count a returning reader once rather than a dozen times. A cookie cannot run code, cannot open your files and, by itself, has no idea who you are. What makes cookies matter is who else can read them and what other records those parties hold, which is why cookies set by companies other than us get their own section below.

Two related mechanisms are treated as cookies on this page. Local storage holds a little more than a cookie does and never leaves your device unless a script sends it. Pixels are minute images or snippets of script whose sole purpose is to record that a page or an advertisement was loaded. Whenever this page says cookies, it means all three.

Cookies we set ourselves

First-party cookies belong to the winaddons.com domain and can be read only by this site. There are four.

  • Consent and preferences. Stores the choices you made in the cookie banner and any display settings you pick, so the same questions are not asked on every page.
  • Session. Holds the site together while you move from page to page, and vanishes when the browser closes.
  • Analytics. Allows the measurement tool to distinguish a returning browser from a first-time one. It carries a random identifier rather than your name, and the tool is set up not to build individual profiles.
  • Security. Helps separate people from bots when the site is under load or under attack.

None of the four selects advertising by your interests, and none is passed to anyone else, Microsoft and the other companies we write about included.

Cookies set by others

Advertising on WinAddons is delivered by a third-party advertising network, the arrangement our ownership and funding page describes. When an advertisement loads, that network may place a cookie under its own domain and read it back on any other site that carries the same network’s advertising. That is the mechanism behind interest-based advertising, and it is the one place where this site’s cookie use follows you beyond winaddons.com. What the network does with what it gathers is governed by its own privacy policy, which repays reading. Where your local law requires consent before such cookies can be set, the code that sets them stays unloaded until you give it.

Embedded content may set cookies too. A game trailer, a keynote clip, a social media post that is the story or an interactive chart is served by the platform hosting it, which may set cookies as it loads. We embed only when the material is part of the story, and where the platform offers a mode that holds back any third-party contact until you press play, that is the mode we use. What those platforms do with their cookies is outside our control.

The four categories in the banner

The consent banner groups cookies into categories, and switching each one off has a different effect.

  • Strictly necessary. The session and security cookies. Without them the site does not work, so the banner cannot disable them, though your browser can, at the cost of some functions.
  • Preferences. Switch these off and the site forgets your choices between visits, including your consent choice, which means the banner comes back.
  • Analytics. Switch these off and the site works as before; our readership figures simply become less accurate.
  • Advertising. Switch these off and advertisements still appear, but generic ones rather than ones chosen for you.

Consent and where you live

Cookie law differs by jurisdiction, and our readers are in all of them. Where the GDPR applies, no non-essential cookie is set until you have consented, and the banner is designed to ask honestly, with refusal as easy as acceptance. Where the CCPA or a comparable consumer privacy law applies, you may opt out of cookies used for advertising across sites, and the same controls achieve that. Everywhere else we default to the stricter approach rather than guess at the local rule. The cookie settings link in the footer lets you revisit your choice whenever you like.

Refusing, removing and signalling

The banner governs every non-essential cookie on the site and can be reopened from the footer at any time. Your browser adds a second layer: every major one can display, remove and block cookies, either for every site or for chosen ones, and can empty local storage. The controls move between versions, so we point you to the browser’s own help pages rather than describing them here. A private or incognito window throws cookies away when it closes, and nothing on this site is designed to penalise that habit.

We recognise the Global Privacy Control signal, which recent browsers and extensions send automatically; when it arrives we treat it as a no to advertising and analytics cookies, with no need for you to open the banner. We do not use techniques that rebuild an identifier after you have deleted it; a site that reports on other companies’ tracking has no business doing so.

Block every cookie and parts of the site will misbehave: your consent choice will not be remembered, so the banner returns, and embedded content may fail to load. The articles will still be readable, which is the point of the site.

How long they last

Session cookies end when the browser closes. Preference and analytics cookies persist for months, so that someone who comes back for the next update cycle, the next console launch or the next earnings report is recognised rather than counted as new. Advertising cookies expire on the schedule set by the network that placed them, generally somewhere between days and a little over a year. Your browser can delete any of them at any moment.

Changes and questions

If a category of cookie is added, a provider changes, or cookies start serving a purpose this page does not describe, the page is updated first and the consent banner is reset so that you are asked again. Questions about cookies go to support@winaddons.com with PRIVACY in the subject line.