Updated: 5 October 2026
What cookies are
Cookies are small files a site saves in your browser. A similar technology is the browser’s local storage (localStorage). For brevity we call all of this “cookies”.
What the site stores now
| Name | Purpose | Duration | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
bg-consent (localStorage) | Remembers your choice in the cookie banner | 12 months | Necessary |
bg-a11y (localStorage) | Remembers your accessibility panel settings (text size, contrast, etc.); created only if you used the panel | Until you clear the site’s data | Necessary (a feature you requested) |
bg-ga-off (localStorage) | Appears only if you yourself opened the site with a link containing ?ga=off so that your visits are not counted in the statistics | Until you clear the site’s data | Necessary (a feature you requested) |
_ga, _ga_3MZ7CDRWKX (cookies) | Google Analytics: tell visitors and sessions apart so that visit statistics can be counted. Set only after you consent to “Analytics” | Up to 2 years | Analytics |
Google cookies on the google.com and doubleclick.net domains | Google signals: let Google link a visit to your Google account if you are signed in and allow ad personalisation. Set by Google itself (not by us), only after you consent to “Advertising (Google signals)” | Under Google’s rules | Advertising |
Without your consent to “Analytics”, our site does not set cookies in the strict sense (a Set-Cookie header from the server). Google Analytics cookies are set by a script in your browser — and only after consent; the cookies for Google signals only after a separate consent to “Advertising (Google signals)”.
External services
- Fonts are hosted on our site. Your browser does not contact Google Fonts.
- Weather. The widget on city pages takes data from the Open-Meteo service. The request goes straight from your browser, so the service sees your IP address. This only happens after your consent — the “External services” category in cookie settings, or the “Show weather” button.
- Google Analytics 4. Visit statistics. The script loads from Google’s servers (googletagmanager.com) and sends data to google-analytics.com only after your consent — the “Analytics” category in cookie settings. Google does not store the IP address and uses it only to work out approximate location (country, city). Data may be processed in the EU, the US and other countries; events are kept for 14 months. If you open the site with the parameter
?ga=off, your visits will not be counted. - Google signals. Extended audience data in Google Analytics. Switched on only after a separate consent to the “Advertising (Google signals)” category: then Google may link your visit to your Google account (if you are signed in and allow ad personalisation), and we see only aggregated data — age groups, gender, interests. Google may also use the data for advertising under its own rules; we show no ads ourselves and have not linked any advertising account to analytics. Without this consent signals are off. You can switch ad personalisation off in your Google account: adssettings.google.com.
- WhatsApp. The WhatsApp button is an ordinary link: nothing is sent anywhere until you click it. After you click, WhatsApp’s and Meta’s rules apply.
- Photos are stored on our site; links to Wikimedia Commons lead to its pages and load nothing.
Categories and how to manage them
- Necessary — always on; without them your settings would not work.
- External services — your choice (currently only the weather).
- Analytics — Google Analytics visit statistics, your choice.
- Advertising (Google signals) — extended audience data and Google’s advertising features, your separate choice. We show no ads ourselves.
You can change your choice at any time with the “Cookie settings” button at the bottom of any page. You can also delete or block cookies in your browser settings; some features (for example the weather) may then stop working. You can also opt out of Google Analytics with Google’s official Analytics Opt-out browser add-on.
For more about personal data see the Privacy Policy.