Cookies and Local Storage
Last updated 7 October 2026
probability.media and its sites use no advertising cookies, no analytics, and no third-party trackers. What they do store is the small amount needed to keep you signed in and to avoid losing your work. This page covers every probability.media site.
What is stored on your device
| What | Purpose | Kept |
|---|---|---|
| Your sign-in session | Keeps you signed in between visits, and lets a confirmation or password-reset link complete: following one exchanges a single-use code in the link for a session. It is one sign-in for every probability.media site, so the cookies are set for probability.media and its subdomains, such as research.probability.media, and are read by those sites only. The session is split across a few numbered cookies because it is larger than one cookie can hold. | Until you sign out, or 180 days without a visit |
| That you have entered | The Research homepage opens with a welcome and an Enter button. Pressing it sets one first-party cookie so the welcome is shown once rather than on every visit. It holds a single "1", identifies nobody, and is sent nowhere but back to Research. | One year |
| Your unfinished submission | Saves a draft as you type, so closing the tab or losing signal does not lose what you wrote. | Until published or discarded |
| Your unfinished reply | The same, for a reply you started on a particular submission. | Until posted or cleared |
| When we last recorded your visit | Avoids repeating a "you were here" write to the database on every page load. Only a timestamp, held on your device. | Until you clear site data |
| Your name, role and status for the identity strip | Your username, whether you are a member, moderator or administrator, and your chosen status, online, do not disturb or invisible, so the strip at the top of every page can show them without asking the database again on each page. Each is a copy of something already on your profile, written by your account page and read by the strip; nothing is decided by any of them. Like the session, it is shared by the probability.media sites. | Until you sign out |
| When your presence was last recorded | A single timestamp, so that several open tabs across the probability.media sites make one "you were here" write to the database every few minutes rather than one each. It holds a number and nothing else. While your status is Invisible, nothing is recorded at all. | Ten minutes |
| Which site sent you to your account | The account page takes on the colours of the site you arrived from, gold from Research for example. One word, research, studios, music or hub, so it keeps those colours while you move between its pages. Session storage is forgotten when you close the tab. | Until you close the tab |
| Wrong passwords entered in this browser | A count of incorrect passwords for an address, so the sign-in form can show a check after several and pause this browser for ten minutes after fifteen, which protects your account from someone guessing at it. Stored under a short scrambled code made from the address, never the address itself. Cleared the moment you sign in successfully or reset your password. | Until you sign in or reset your password |
| Your picture for the identity strip | A copy of your 32×32 profile picture, so the strip can show it. It is kept separately by each probability.media site you visit rather than in a shared cookie, because a cookie is sent with every request and the picture would make each one heavier. Labelled with your account so that someone else signing in on the same browser never sees yours. | Until you sign out |
| Your best time in Propagate | Propagate is the game on the Research site. It keeps your longest survival time, and the score, depth and number of signals of that run, so your record is waiting the next time you play. This copy stays on your device. If you play while signed in, your best run is also kept with your account for the public leaderboard; that is described on the privacy page, not stored here. | Until you clear site data |
Nothing else is kept on your device. A note you are writing is held in memory until you press Save, and the browser asks before you leave the page with unsaved words; nothing of it is written to your device. Whether a reply is folded, which tab of a profile you last opened, and where you were in a thread are all held in memory only and are forgotten when you leave the page.
Why there is no cookie banner
Consent banners are required for storage that is not necessary to provide the service you asked for, chiefly advertising and analytics. This site has neither: no advertising network, no analytics package, no tracking pixels and no third-party scripts that follow you between sites.
Everything in the table above exists to sign you in, to keep your draft, to avoid an unnecessary write, or to honour a preference you set yourself, so it falls within the exemption for strictly necessary storage. If analytics are ever added, a consent mechanism will be added at the same time, and this page will say so.
One file loads from another server: the Supabase client library, fetched from the jsDelivr network. It sets no cookie and stores nothing on your device, but your browser does contact jsDelivr to collect it, so jsDelivr can see your IP address and that a page here was opened. It is told nothing about you, your account or what you read. No fonts, images, scripts or widgets are loaded from anybody else.
One more file loads from another server, on the sign-in, sign-up and password-reset forms only: Cloudflare Turnstile, the check that tells those forms apart from an automated flood. It is loaded from Cloudflare, which can therefore see your IP address and that the form was opened. It is not used anywhere you read or write on the forum, it is not an advertising or analytics product, and what it stores while it runs is governed by Cloudflare's own privacy policy rather than by us. Most of the time it decides silently; it asks you to do something only after repeated failed attempts.
Following a link that leaves probability.media is always announced first, and the destination is shown to you before you go.
Nothing here identifies you to anyone else
Everything in the table is written by probability.media and its own sites, read by them only, and sent nowhere else. None of it is a tracking identifier, none of it is shared, and clearing it has no effect beyond signing you out and discarding an unpublished draft.
Your profile picture
If you add one, it is resized to 32×32 pixels by your own browser and sent as part of your profile. The original file never leaves your device. The only thing kept on it afterwards is the small copy the identity strip shows, listed in the table above, which goes when you sign out.
What the Engine, the Library, the reader and Propagate store
The Engine and the Research Library set nothing. Configurations you export from the Engine are downloaded as files to your own computer; they are not uploaded anywhere unless you attach one to a submission yourself.
The paper reader stores nothing either, and contacts nobody. It renders the PDF in your browser using a rendering engine served from this site rather than from anyone else's, so opening a paper reveals nothing to a third party and leaves nothing behind. Your page, zoom and which sections you opened are held in memory only and are forgotten when you leave.
Propagate, the game on the Research site, works the same way: its 3D engine is served from this site rather than from anyone else's, so playing it contacts nobody else. Apart from your best time, listed above, it stores nothing on your device. Played as a guest it sends nothing at all, unless you open the leaderboard to read it.
Clearing it
Signing out removes the authentication token from every probability.media site at once. To clear everything, use your browser's site-data controls for probability.media in most browsers under Settings, then Privacy, then Cookies and site data. Clearing storage will sign you out and discard any unpublished draft.
Questions: contact@probability.media