Last updated: October 1, 2026
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer, smartphone, tablet, or other device when you visit a website. They are widely used to make websites function more efficiently, provide a better user experience, and give website owners valuable information about how their sites are being used. Cookies cannot harm your device, and they do not contain personally identifiable information unless you have voluntarily provided such information to the website.
Cookies may be set by the website you are visiting (known as "first-party cookies") or by other websites that run content on the page you are viewing (known as "third-party cookies"). Cookies serve various purposes, including remembering your preferences, keeping you logged in during a browsing session, understanding how you interact with the website, and delivering relevant content and advertising. This Cookie Policy explains what cookies are, how we use them on windowsscpguide.com, and the choices you have regarding their use.
WindowsSCPGuide uses cookies and similar tracking technologies to enhance your experience on our website, improve our content and services, understand user behavior, and ensure the smooth operation of our website. We use cookies responsibly and in accordance with applicable privacy laws, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and the ePrivacy Directive.
The specific ways we use cookies include remembering your theme preferences such as dark or light mode, maintaining your cookie consent choices, measuring website performance and loading times, analyzing which content is most popular with our visitors, understanding how users navigate through our tutorials, identifying technical issues that need attention, and improving our overall user experience based on usage patterns. We do not use cookies to collect sensitive personal information, and we do not sell cookie data to third parties for marketing purposes.
The cookies used on our website can be categorized based on their function, duration, and the entity that sets them. Understanding these categories will help you make informed decisions about which cookies you want to allow or block. Below we provide an overview of the different types of cookies you may encounter when using our website.
By duration, cookies fall into two main categories: session cookies, which are temporary and are deleted when you close your browser, and persistent cookies, which remain on your device for a predetermined period or until you manually delete them. By origin, cookies are either first-party (set by our website directly) or third-party (set by external services we integrate with). By purpose, cookies can be essential, analytics, preference, or marketing-related. We primarily use essential, analytics, and preference cookies, as described in the following sections.
Essential cookies, also known as strictly necessary cookies, are required for the basic functioning of our website. These cookies enable core features such as security, network management, accessibility, and your consent preferences. Without these cookies, our website would not function properly, and services you have asked for cannot be provided. Essential cookies do not require your consent because they are necessary for the operation of the website.
Examples of essential cookies on our website include cookies that remember your cookie consent choices so we do not repeatedly ask you to accept or decline cookies, session identifiers that maintain the state of your browsing session, and security tokens that help protect against cross-site request forgery and other security threats. These cookies typically do not store any information that could personally identify you and are automatically deleted when they are no longer needed.
Analytics cookies help us understand how visitors interact with our website by collecting and reporting information anonymously. We use these cookies to analyze patterns of usage, identify which tutorials and guides are most helpful to our visitors, discover areas of our website that may need improvement, measure the effectiveness of our content, and make data-driven decisions about future content and features.
We primarily use Google Analytics for website analytics. Google Analytics uses cookies to collect information such as the number of visitors to our site, the pages they visit, the time they spend on each page, the source of their traffic (such as search engines or direct links), and basic demographic information when available. The data collected is aggregated and does not personally identify individual users. You can opt out of Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on or by declining analytics cookies through our cookie consent banner.
Preference cookies, also known as functionality cookies, allow our website to remember choices you have made in the past, providing a more personalized experience during your visit. These cookies store information such as your preferred language, display settings like dark or light mode, text size preferences, and other customization choices you have made while browsing our website.
Preference cookies are not essential for the website to function, but they significantly enhance your user experience by remembering your choices across sessions. For example, if you have selected dark mode during a previous visit, a preference cookie will remember this setting so that dark mode is automatically applied the next time you visit. You can disable these cookies, but doing so may cause the website to reset your preferences each time you visit, requiring you to set them again.
You have several options for managing cookies and controlling how they are used on your device. When you first visit our website, you will see a cookie consent banner that allows you to accept or decline non-essential cookies. You can change your preferences at any time by clearing your browser cookies and revisiting our site, which will cause the consent banner to reappear.
Additionally, most web browsers allow you to control cookies through their settings. You can configure your browser to notify you when cookies are being set, block all cookies, block only third-party cookies, or delete cookies that have already been stored. The process varies depending on the browser you use. For detailed instructions, please consult the help documentation for your specific browser: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Microsoft Edge, or Opera. Please note that if you choose to block or delete cookies, some features of our website may not function properly, and your user experience may be affected.
The following table provides a detailed list of the specific cookies used on our website, their providers, purposes, expiration periods, and types. This information is provided to help you make informed decisions about which cookies to allow or block.
| Cookie Name | Provider | Purpose | Expiry | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
_ga |
Google Analytics | Distinguishes unique users by assigning a randomly generated client identifier used to calculate visitor, session, and campaign data. | 2 years | Analytics |
_gid |
Google Analytics | Distinguishes unique users and stores information about how the user interacts with the website for analytics reporting. | 24 hours | Analytics |
_gat |
Google Analytics | Used by Google Analytics to throttle the request rate and limit the collection of data on high-traffic sites. | 1 minute | Analytics |
wscpg-theme |
WindowsSCPGuide | Remembers your selected theme preference (light or dark mode) across browsing sessions. | 1 year | Preference |
wscpg-cookies |
WindowsSCPGuide | Stores your cookie consent preferences so we do not display the consent banner on every visit. | 1 year | Essential |
JSESSIONID |
WindowsSCPGuide | Preserves user session state across page requests and is essential for site navigation and functionality. | Session | Essential |
XSRF-TOKEN |
WindowsSCPGuide | Security token used to prevent cross-site request forgery attacks and protect form submissions. | Session | Essential |
wscpg-lang |
WindowsSCPGuide | Remembers your preferred language setting for the website interface. | 6 months | Preference |
Please note that the cookies listed above may change from time to time as we update our website and services. We will update this table to reflect any significant changes to the cookies we use.
Some cookies on our website are set by third-party service providers that we work with to enhance the functionality and performance of our website. These third parties include analytics providers like Google Analytics, content delivery networks that help speed up content loading, and other service providers that assist us in operating our website effectively.
Third-party cookies are governed by the privacy policies and cookie policies of the respective third parties, not by WindowsSCPGuide. We do not control the behavior of third-party cookies, nor do we have access to the information collected by them. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third-party services whose cookies may be set when you visit our website. If you want to opt out of third-party cookies, you can do so through our cookie consent banner, through your browser settings, or by using the opt-out tools provided by the respective third parties.
We may update this Cookie Policy from time to time to reflect changes in the cookies we use, changes in applicable laws and regulations, or improvements in how we communicate information about cookies. When we make material changes to this policy, we will notify users by updating the "Last updated" date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, by providing more prominent notice such as a banner on our website.
We encourage you to review this Cookie Policy periodically to stay informed about our use of cookies and related technologies. Your continued use of our website after any changes to this policy constitutes your acceptance of the revised terms. If you do not agree with any changes, you should adjust your cookie preferences accordingly or discontinue use of our website.
If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Cookie Policy or our use of cookies, please contact us using the following information:
We are committed to transparency about our use of cookies and will respond to inquiries about this policy in a timely manner. For related information about how we handle your personal data, please also review our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.