Cookies and storage
Five keys in your browser's local storage, an offline copy of the site's own pages if you ask for one, and no cookies of our own.
We set no cookies
DuskDial sets no cookie of its own, for any purpose: not for a session, a preference or analytics. Cloudflare Web Analytics, which counts visits, is cookieless and stores no identifier on your device.
What we do keep, and where
Five things are written to your browser's local storage. Local storage is not a cookie, but the rules about storing things on your device apply to it just the same, and the reason these are allowed without asking is that each one is something you set or typed yourself by using the site. The offline copy is different, and is made only when you ask for it.
| Key | What it holds | Why it exists |
|---|---|---|
duskdial:theme | the word "dark" or the word "light" | so the page opens in the scheme you last chose instead of flashing the other one at you |
duskdial:clock | the number 12 or the number 24 | so times stay in the format you picked as you move from page to page |
duskdial:assumptions | two numbers: the cycle length and the drop-off allowance, both in minutes | so the two sliders stay where you put them rather than resetting on every page |
duskdial:week | up to seven numbers, each one a count of minutes slept, and the target you set | so the week's tally survives closing the tab, which is the only thing that makes a weekly tally usable |
duskdial:notebook | the mornings you note on the find-your-cycle page, at most sixty: for each, a date, when you got into bed, when you got up, and whether waking was fine or groggy | so the notebook is still there on the next morning, which is the only way it can gather enough mornings to fit a cycle length to |
/sw.js (a service worker) | nothing of its own; it is the script that answers from the copy below when there is no connection | only if you ask for the offline copy, so the site opens without a connection; removing the copy removes it too |
duskdial-… (Cache Storage) | copies of this site's own pages, scripts, styles, fonts, icons and the moon and sun images, exactly as the server sent them: 11 pages when you turn it on and up to 80 more you open | only if you ask for it, so those pages open without a connection; replaced by the current version the next time a page opens with a connection after the site changes, and nothing you type or set is in it |
None of them contains a name, an address, an identifier or anything that could be used to recognise you elsewhere. None of them is transmitted. They persist until you remove them.
The last two rows are the offline copy. None of it exists until you ask for it, with the switch below, the same switch on the offline page and on About, or by installing DuskDial as an app in a browser that tells the page it has been installed. It holds nothing but the site's own public files and lets the pages open with no connection; the offline page lists the pages it keeps from the start. Turning it off unregisters the worker and deletes the copy. Nothing records whether it is on, apart from the copy being there.
No copy of DuskDial is kept on this device.
Settings in a link
Each calculator has a link beside it, "Link to these settings", that carries the settings you change after the # sign, so a bookmark or a link you send reopens the page the way you left it. That is not storage: nothing is kept, the link goes wherever you send it, and a page opened from one takes the settings out of its address as soon as it has read them. A browser leaves the part after the # out when it asks the server for a page. The privacy page says more.
Removing them
- The week's tally has a Forget my week button on its own page, which deletes that key immediately.
- The notebook has a Clear the notebook button on the find-your-cycle page, which does the same for its key.
- The offline copy has a Remove the offline copy button on this page, the offline page and About, which unregisters the worker and deletes the copy.
- All of them go when you clear this site's data in your browser, the offline copy included. In most browsers that is under Settings, then Privacy, then site data or cookies, searching for this site by name.
- Browsing in a private window leaves nothing behind when the window closes.
The site works with storage blocked entirely. You lose only the conveniences: the theme, the clock format and the slider positions reset each time, the week's tally and the notebook cannot be kept, and there is no offline copy. Every calculation still works.
Google's advertising cookies
No advert runs on this site and no advertising script is loaded, so no advertising cookie is set by anyone. Google AdSense is meant to pay for the site; before its script is added, this page will describe the cookies Google sets and how to refuse them.