Our website requires you to have cookies enabled on your browser.
Cookies are harmless pieces of information stored on your computer. They may contain information such as the username you use when visiting a particular site, or keep track of the number of times you have visited a site. Cookies can only be read by you, or the web site that created the cookie in the first place.
We use cookies to store a unique identity code for you . This allows us to securely enable us to provide a members only area. Cookies enable you to stay logged in whilst you browse the members-only areas.
Most websites don't use cookies as they are 'static', ie they just display information. Most 'dynamic' sites where the information changes according to the choices you make on the website use cookies to store information about you. Nearly all shopping sites and other highly functional websites use cookies. The exceptions are those sites (e.g. eBay, online banks and some very large shopping sites) where membership is usually required before you can purchase. With these sites the information normally stored in a cookie is stored against the customer's account on the webserver instead... and this is arguably a greater privacy issue than cookies!
No, they are not. Some people believe that they are, however, this is a common misconception, propagated largely by an ill-informed press. In reality, the worst security risk you are likely to face from cookies is that a website owner will be able to 'tag' your browser when you enter their site and find out how often you visit and, perhaps, what pages you like to look at. You may see this as an invasion of your privacy, but it is hardly a security risk. That website owner still cannot access any information about you, except what you knowingly give them by filling in forms. What's more, cookies can generally only be accessed by the web server that set them. So, you still have control over what information you give out, and to whom.
No. Cookies are NOT spyware. Cookies are information sent by the server to the browser to be stored in a text file on the user's hard drive. Cookies can not: be viruses; steal credit card information; steal banking information; or see what software you have on your computer. A cookie is just a file with textual information set by the server. As explained above, the most a cookie can do is to pass information between pages within a single website/domain. Some companies use this to provide targeted adverts and/or popups.
The main reason some people object to cookies being used is that they provide an indication (to people who have direct access to your PC) to which websites you have visited, but then again, so do the temporary Internet files that your browser generates. If you have been browsing websites that you don't potentially want others to know about, simply delete the temporary files and cookies once you have finished (under tools, internet options).
Yes, but it's only a tiny amount and your browser will limit the size of your cookies folder automatically. Also, bear in mind that every webpage you visit is stored temporarily in your browser's cache directory and, depending on your system settings, this can occupy several MegaBytes. Cookies, however, usually won't occupy more than, say 100 Bytes. As a rough guide, that's about 1/400 th of the size of an average webpage and 1/50,000 th of the size of an average cache directory.
To access the members login on our site, you must ensure that your computer will accept cookies. Most internet browsers (for example Google Chrome) will allow you selectively allow and disallow cookies. If you use Google Chrome, then you can manage cookies by:
If you have enabled cookies, and you still cannot use our shopping system, then please do one of the following:
In some special cases we also use cookies provided by trusted third parties. The following section details which third party cookies you might encounter through this site.
Hopefully that has clarified things for you and as was previously mentioned if there is something that you aren't sure whether you need or not it's usually safer to leave cookies enabled in case it does interact with one of the features you use on our site. However if you are still looking for more information then you can contact us via our contact page