What Are Cookies

As is common practice with almost all professional websites this site uses cookies, which are tiny files that are downloaded to your computer, to improve your experience. This page describes what information they gather, how it is used and why it is sometimes needed to store these cookies. I will also share how you can prevent these cookies from being stored; however, this may downgrade or ‘break’ certain elements of the site’s functionality.

For more general information on cookies see the Wikipedia article on HTTP Cookies at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie

How I Use Cookies

I use cookies for a variety of reasons detailed below. Unfortunately, in most cases there are no industry standard options for disabling cookies without completely disabling the functionality and features they add to this site. It is recommended that you leave on all cookies if you are not sure whether you need them or not, in case they are used to provide a service that you use.

Disabling Cookies

You can prevent the setting of cookies by adjusting the settings on your browser (see your browser Help for how to do this). Be aware that disabling cookies will affect the functionality of this and many other websites that you visit. Disabling cookies will usually result in also disabling certain functionality and features of this site. Therefore, it is recommended that you do not disable cookies.

The Cookies I Set

This site may offer newsletter or email subscription services and cookies may be used to remember if you are already registered and whether to show certain notifications which might only be valid to subscribed/unsubscribed users.

When you submit data to through a form such as those found on contact pages or comment forms, cookies may be set to remember your user details for future correspondence.

In order to provide you with a great experience on this site I have provided the functionality to set your preferences for how this site runs when you use it. In order to remember your preferences, I need to set cookies so that this information can be called whenever you interact with a page is affected by your preferences.

Third Party Cookies

In some special cases I also use cookies provided by trusted third parties. The following section details which third party cookie you might encounter through this site.

This site uses Google Analytics which is one of the most widespread and trusted analytics solution on the web for helping me to understand how you use the site and ways that I can improve your experience. These cookies may track things such as how long you spend on the site and the pages that you visit so I can continue to produce engaging content.

For more information on Google Analytics cookies, see the official Google Analytics page: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gtagjs/cookie-usage

Google Web Fonts

My website uses Google Web Fonts; the use of Google Web Fonts is bound by Google’s generic API terms of service.

More Information

Hopefully that has clarified things for you and as was previously mentioned if there is something that you aren’t sure whether you need or not, it’s usually safer to leave cookies enabled in case it does interact with one of the features you use on my site. However, if you are still looking for more information, you can contact me via the contact form page.

Cookie Policy

1. Introduction

1.1 My website uses cookies.

1.2 Insofar as those cookies are not strictly necessary for the provision of my website and services, I will ask you to consent to my use of cookies when you first visit my website.

2. About cookies

2.1 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.

2.2 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.

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

3. Cookies that I use

3.1 I use cookies for the following purposes:

Authentication – I use cookies to identify you and primarily to verify you are a legitimate visitor and not a spam or malware: bot – when you visit my website and as you navigate my website (cookies used for this purpose are: wordfence_verifiedHuman);

Website Performance – I use cookies to monitor server load to improve the performance of the website and to preserve user session states across page requests, this is used to keep logged in users logged in when moving around the website (cookies used for this purpose are: PHPSESSID; DYNSRV);

Improve Ease of Use for Users – I use cookies enable auto-fill options when filling out forms and for PayPal to remember users in order to speed up the checkout process (cookies used for this purpose are: wfvt_#; PYPF);

Security – I use cookies as an element of the security measures used to protect my website’s visitors, user accounts, including preventing fraudulent use of login credentials, and to protect my website and services generally (cookies used for this purpose are: wordfence_verifiedHuman);

Audience Demographics – I use cookies from Facebook and Google Advertising services (doubleclick.net) to gain a better insight into the demographic make-up of my website visitors, data such as gender, age and location. I may in future use this information for developing marketing campaigns to promote my work and solicit donations (cookies used for this purpose are: fr; tr; r/collect;

Analysis – I use cookies to collect information such as user location, browser, browser language, screen resolution and device type to help me to ensure that my website meets the needs of my users (cookies used for this purpose are: 01AI);

Cookie Consent – I use cookies to store your preferences in relation to the use of cookies more generally (cookies used for this purpose are: CookieConsent);

Gathering Website Usage Information – I use cookies to report on website usage statistics such as visitors, page views, average time spent on the site, traffic sources, content engagement actions and search terms used to find the website (cookies used for this purpose are: __utma; __utmb; __utmc; __utmt; __utmz).

4. Cookies used by my service providers

4.1 My service providers use cookies and those cookies may be stored on your computer when you visit my website.

4.2 I use Google Analytics to analyse the use of my website. Google Analytics gathers information about website use by means of cookies. The information gathered relating to my website is used to create reports about the use of my website. Google’s privacy policy is available at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/. The relevant cookies are: __utma; __utmb; __utmc; __utmt; __utmz.

4.3 I may use Twitter to embed tweets and video in some blog posts. This service uses cookies for collecting anonymous website usage data such as the number of visits, which pages have been viewed and average time spent on the site for the purpose of personalising and improving the Twitter service. You can view the privacy policy of this service provider at https://www.youtube.com/static?template=privacy_guidelines. The relevant cookies are: _twitter_sess; ct0; external_referer; guest_id; personalization_id.

I may use YouTube to embed videos in some blog posts. This service uses cookies for registering a unique ID to track which videos users have seen and interaction statistics. You can view the privacy policy of this service provider at https://twitter.com/privacy. The relevant cookies are PREF; VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE; YSC.

5. Managing cookies

5.1 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 the following links:

Google Chrome: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95647?hl=en-GB

Microsoft Internet Explorer: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/278835

Microsoft Edge: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/products/microsoft-edge (Please note that there are no specific instructions at this time, but Microsoft support will be able to assist)

Safari (macOS): https://support.apple.com/kb/PH21411?viewlocale=en_GB&locale=en_GB

Safari (iOS): https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201265

Mozilla Firefox: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-and-disable-Cookies-website-preferences

Android: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95647?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en (Please refer to your device’s documentation for manufacturers’ own browsers)

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

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

6. My details

6.1 This website is owned and operated by Shakila Taranum Maan.

6.2 You can contact me using my website contact form.

Policy updated 16^th November 2022