Small print
Cookie policy
Xilarevoku sets no cookies. Not one, not even a strictly necessary one, because there is no server session to maintain. What the site does use is two entries in your browser's local storage, and since most readers would reasonably call those cookies, they are documented here in full rather than hidden behind a technicality.
Revised 12 July 2026 alongside the privacy policy.
The difference, briefly
A cookie is a small file that your browser attaches to every request it makes to a website, which is what makes cookies useful for tracking. Local storage is a separate mechanism: values sit in the browser and are only read by code running on the page. They are never attached to a request and never travel to a server unless a script deliberately sends them somewhere. Nothing on this site sends them anywhere.
Both mechanisms are covered by the same UK rules on storing information on a reader's device, which is why this page exists and why the notice appears on your first visit.
Everything this site stores
| Name | Type | Example value | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|---|---|
xr_notice_ack |
Local storage | accepted|2026-07-30 |
Records that you have dealt with the notice at the bottom of the page, so it does not reappear on every article. Stores which of the two buttons you pressed and the date. | Never, until you clear it |
xr_read_tally |
Local storage | 7 |
Counts how many pages you have opened here on this device, and shows the number back to you on the front page and the letters page. It is a reading counter for your benefit; we cannot see it. | Never, until you clear it |
That is the complete list. If you open your browser's developer tools and find anything else under this domain, something has gone wrong and we would genuinely like to hear about it through the letters page.
What we deliberately do not use
No analytics
No Google Analytics, no Plausible, no Matomo, no self-hosted counter, no server-side log analysis. We do not know how many people read this page and have made peace with that.
No advertising or affiliate tags
There are no ad slots, no retargeting pixels, no conversion tracking and no affiliate identifiers, because nothing on this site can be bought.
No third-party resources
Stylesheets, icon fonts, typefaces, illustrations and scripts are all served from this domain. Your browser makes no request to any other host while reading these pages.
No embeds or social widgets
No embedded video players, no comment platform, no share buttons, no newsletter iframe. Where we mention something elsewhere, it is a plain link that only loads if you click it.
Refusing or removing them
Pressing Just hide this on the notice records a dismissal rather than a consent. Both buttons write the same key with a different value, and neither unlocks any additional storage, because there is no additional storage to unlock.
To remove both values, clear site data for this domain. The steps differ by browser:
Click the padlock or tune icon at the left of the address bar, choose Cookies and site data, then Manage on-device site data, and delete the entry for this domain. Alternatively open Settings, then Privacy and security, then Third-party cookies or Site data, and search for the domain there.
Click the padlock icon, choose Clear cookies and site data, and confirm. For finer control open Settings, then Privacy & Security, scroll to Cookies and Site Data, click Manage Data, and remove the entry for this domain.
Open Safari settings, go to the Privacy tab, click Manage Website Data, find this domain and remove it. Safari lists local storage alongside cookies in this dialogue, so a single removal clears both values.
Open the Settings app, scroll to Safari, choose Advanced, then Website Data. Find this domain in the list and swipe to delete it. Clearing all history and website data works too but affects every site.
In a private or incognito window both values are discarded when you close it, so the notice will appear again on your next visit and the page counter will restart at one. If your browser blocks local storage entirely, the site still works: the notice simply reappears each time and the counter line stays blank.
Doing without them
Nothing on this site depends on either value. Every write-up, every table and both forms behave identically with local storage disabled. The only visible differences are a notice that will not stay dismissed and a counter that never counts, and we would rather that than build anything that stops working when a reader locks their browser down.
If this page becomes out of date
Any change to what we store here is reflected on this page before it ships, and mentioned in the Friday round-up afterwards. If we ever added analytics — and we have no plan to — the notice would change from an explanation into an actual consent request, with refusal working properly rather than decoratively.