Why are so many cookies necessary?
This page isn’t using cookies. Here’s what it still knows about you.
So, what’s going on?
This page reads information your browser provides right now, in the moment. It doesn’t need to store anything. So seeing this information can be surprising.
This page is built with simple HTML and JavaScript running asynchronously.
What this page does (and doesn’t) do:
- Reads: language, timezone, screen/viewport size, display preferences, and basic device / network hints... in real time.
- May reveal: permission states like camera / microphone (allowed / blocked / prompt), depending on your browser.
- Does not store: anything on your device (no cookies, no localStorage, no sessionStorage, no IndexedDB).
- Does not build: a hidden ID or fingerprint “hash”.
- Does not call: third-party scripts or load third-party assets automatically.
- Does not look up: details like your IP address (that would require a server call).
And still, it can respond to you.
Because your browser already exposes data.
That prompts the question, can a website function without cookies, and are cookies really needed?
What a website can do without cookies
Even without cookies, a website can usually:
- show you the right language and text formatting
- match your timezone and local date conventions
- fit your screen and adapt to your device
- respect your settings (like dark mode or reduced motion)
- detect basic capability (touch vs mouse, fast vs slow connection)
- tailor an experience right now, in real time
None of that requires storing anything about you. It's just the website reacting to what your browser is already telling it.
What value do cookies add?
Cookies don’t magically unlock a “better website”.
Cookies mostly do one thing: carry memory forward.
That memory can be useful, and functional. It can:
- keep you signed in
- keep items in a cart
- remember a preference you chose, like your language.
But it can also be used to create continuity you didn't ask for, cookies can:
- recognise you across visits
- link behaviour across pages, and third party websites
- support measurement, attribution, and retargeting messages, and
- over time, enrich your personal profile.
That's why the cookies pop-up exists. Not because the page can't load. Because the website (owners, businesses, organisations, and brands) want to store something that persists.
If a website can already adapt to your browser without cookies, then many “necessary cookies” aren’t about necessity; they’re about intent.
What happens to cookie data?
Sometimes that intent is benign convenience, sometimes it's marketing, sometimes it's surveillance dressed up as 'user experience'.
The trouble is that most of the time the user can’t easily see what’s being stored, for how long, or who receives it.
So here's the challenge:
Should a website need to remember you to be useful?
“We use cookies because we have to” is often shorthand for “we want to remember you across visits, and we may want to use or share what we learn”. This might be convenient, but isn’t always necessary, it isn't always wanted.
"This site uses cookies" isn't a technical fact.
It's a design decision.
Your browser-exposed info (no permission prompts)
Below is the “receipt”, a simple readout of what your browser exposes by default.
No cookies. No storage. No account. No login.
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Can I see your location?
Geolocation is permission-gated and only works in secure contexts, which means your browser requires a HTTPS connection to this website.
When you click the button below, your browser will ask if you want to share your location. If you choose a “remember this” option, your browser may save that decision in its site settings. This page still doesn’t set cookies or store your location.
You can revoke the permission any time in your browser’s site settings.
For educational purposes: no cookies, no localStorage/sessionStorage, no analytics, and no third-party scripts or assets loaded automatically. This page is only displaying to you what your browser already exposes to any page you visit on the internet.