Let’s demystify the word “cookies,” because it sounds more sinister than it is.
A cookie is just a small text file that a website asks your browser to store. It can hold a little bit of information — a setting you chose, a sign that you’ve visited before — so the site can behave more sensibly next time. This page explains the handful of cookies this site uses and, just as importantly, how you stay in control of them.
True to the rest of this site, I keep cookies to a minimum. The tools themselves don’t need them to work — you can switch cookies off entirely and still convert, compress and edit to your heart’s content.
What cookies are used for here
Broadly, the cookies you might encounter on this site fall into three groups:
- Essential — the basics that help pages load and work correctly.
- Preferences — small reminders of choices you’ve made, so you don’t have to set them every visit.
- Advertising — cookies set by the ad network that keeps this site free (more on that below).
Advertising cookies (Google AdSense)
I’ll be straight with you: this site is supported by ads, and ads are what let me keep every tool free, with no account and no watermarks. To show those ads, I use Google AdSense, and that involves cookies.
- Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your previous visits to this site and other sites around the web.
- Google’s advertising cookies allow it and its partners to show you ads that are more relevant to you.
- These cookies are set by the advertising network, not by me, and I don’t have access to the information they collect.
You’re never stuck with them. You can opt out of personalised advertising whenever you like:
- Turn off personalised ads through Google Ads Settings.
- Opt out of many other ad vendors at once at aboutads.info/choices.
If you want the full picture of how Google uses data on sites that run its services, it’s laid out in Google’s policies.
Analytics cookies
I may use analytics to see anonymous, big-picture numbers — like how many people opened a particular tool — purely so I know what to improve. This isn’t used to identify you as an individual.
How to control or delete cookies
You’re in charge here, and it only takes a minute. Every major browser lets you view, block and delete cookies from its settings:
- Chrome: Settings → Privacy and security → Cookies
- Firefox: Settings → Privacy & Security
- Safari: Settings → Privacy
- Edge: Settings → Cookies and site permissions
You can also browse in private or incognito mode, which clears cookies automatically when you’re done. Blocking cookies may affect how some third-party ads behave, but it won’t stop the tools on this site from working — they run locally in your browser regardless.
Changes to this policy
If the way this site uses cookies changes, I’ll update this page and refresh the “last updated” date above.
Questions?
If anything here is unclear, I’m glad to explain it