Cookies — SavvyPlace

You won't see a cookie banner on SavvyPlace today — here's why, and what you can do about all the other ones.

Why we don't show one

Cookie consent banners exist because sites are dropping trackers and advertising cookies onto your device — and the UK's PECR regulations say they have to ask first.

We don't do any of that. SavvyPlace's only cookies are the handful NextAuth sets to keep you signed in safely: a session token, a CSRF token, and a callback-URL helper that remembers where to send you after sign-in. They're classed as “strictly necessary” under PECR, which means we don't need your permission for them — and it would be a bit cheeky to pop up a banner asking for consent you can't really withhold anyway.

We also save a few UI preferences in your browser's local or session storage — your light/dark mode choice, whether the home-page seal animation is playing or paused, and a per-session flag so the notifications panel only opens itself on your first dashboard visit after sign-in. These aren't cookies, they never leave your browser, and they don't contain personal data.

No trackers, no ads, no browsing analytics

As of today, SavvyPlace runs no Google Analytics, no Facebook Pixel, no “we use partners to improve your experience” nonsense. We have no idea which pages you visit or how long you spend on them — and we're fine with that. If that ever changes, we'll update this page and introduce a proper consent mechanism before anything new starts loading.

One thing worth being upfront about: if something on the page breaks, our error monitoring (Sentry) sends the technical details of the crash to us so we can fix it. We strip your IP address, name, email, form contents, and request data out of those reports before they leave your browser — only the error itself and a stable internal user id travel. It's not browsing analytics; it's more like a smoke detector that only goes off when something is wrong.

Honestly, we hate them too

Cookie banners are one of the most annoying things about the modern web. They're often deliberately confusing, the “reject all” button is buried five taps deep, and you end up playing whack-a-mole every time you open a new tab. We built SavvyPlace partly because we believe software should respect the people using it — and that starts with not darkening your screen with a consent wall the moment you arrive.

The good news: you don't have to put up with it elsewhere either. There are browser-level tools that handle all of this for you automatically.

Turn off third-party cookies in your browser

This blocks the most common tracking cookies before they even load:

Chrome— Settings → Privacy and security → Cookies and other site data → Block third-party cookies.
Firefox— Settings → Privacy & Security → Enhanced Tracking Protection → Strict.
Safari— Already blocks cross-site tracking by default. Check Preferences → Privacy if you want to confirm.
Edge— Settings → Cookies and site permissions → Tracking prevention → Strict.

Global Privacy Control — the “do not track me” signal that actually works

The Global Privacy Control (GPC)is a signal your browser can send automatically on every request, telling sites “do not sell or share my data”. Firefox and Brave support it natively; other browsers can add it via an extension. Sites that receive it are legally required to honour it under applicable law — no clicking required from you.

Extensions that do the clicking for you

uBlock Origin — blocks most trackers and a huge number of cookie banners outright. Free, open source, trusted by millions. Available for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge.
Consent-O-Matic— built specifically to fight cookie dialogs. It recognises the most common consent pop-ups and automatically hits “reject non-essential” the moment they appear. You never see them.
Privacy Badger (Electronic Frontier Foundation) — watches which trackers follow you across sites and blocks them as it learns. Good complement to uBlock Origin.