Cookie Policy
XDriv uses cookies for two purposes: to remember your visual preferences, and — with your explicit consent — to deliver and measure the advertising that funds the service. We never sell personal information.
1. What is a cookie?
A cookie is a small piece of text that a website asks your browser to remember between visits. Cookies have many legitimate uses — remembering language preferences, keeping you signed in, measuring how a page is performing — and we use them only for purposes we believe a reasonable person would expect.
2. Your consent comes first
The first time you visit XDriv you will see a consent banner powered by a Google-certified Consent Management Platform (CMP). Until you respond, no advertising or analytics cookies are placed on your device. You may:
- Accept all — allow personalised ads and analytics so we can keep the service free.
- Reject non-essential — only the strictly-necessary cookie that stores your visual preferences is set. You may still see non-personalised ads.
- Manage choices — granular control of each purpose and partner.
You can revisit and change your decision at any time through the Privacy Settings link in the footer.
3. Strictly-necessary cookie
| Name | Set by | Purpose | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|---|
shat_prefs |
XDriv (first-party) | Stores your selected theme, font size and protected-page preference. Contains no personal data and is never shared with any third party. | 1 year |
4. Advertising cookies (set only after consent)
We display ads through Google AdSense. With your consent, AdSense and its partners may set cookies in the following categories:
| Examples of cookies | Set by | Purpose | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|---|
__gads, __gpi, __eoi |
Google AdSense | Selecting and serving ads, measuring ad performance, and limiting how often you see the same advertisement. | Up to 13 months |
IDE, NID, ANID |
Google / DoubleClick | Measuring conversions and showing more relevant ads across Google’s partner network. | Up to 24 months |
| FCM / TCF consent strings | Google CMP | Storing the consent choices you made in the banner so we don’t need to ask again on every visit. | Up to 13 months |
For the authoritative, always-current list, see Google’s advertising technologies page.
5. Analytics cookies (set only after consent)
We use Google Analytics to understand, in aggregate, how visitors use XDriv. With your consent, the following cookies may be set:
| Cookie | Set by | Purpose | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|---|
_ga |
Google Analytics | Distinguishes one visitor from another so we can measure unique visits. | 2 years |
_ga_* |
Google Analytics | Persists session state for a specific GA4 property. | 2 years |
_gid |
Google Analytics | Distinguishes visitors over a 24-hour window. | 24 hours |
Analytics data is aggregated and anonymised. We do not use it to build advertising profiles, and we do not link it to individual users.
6. What we do not use
- No social-network “like” or “share” buttons that drop tracking cookies.
- No session-replay or heat-map services such as Hotjar or FullStory.
- No cross-domain identifiers we control beyond the strictly-necessary cookie above.
- No sale of cookie data to data brokers, ever.
7. Managing or removing cookies
You can clear or block cookies at any time using your browser’s privacy settings. Doing so will reset your visual preferences on your next visit and re-show the consent banner. You may also use Google’s Ads Settings to control ad personalisation across all Google services.
8. Changes
If we add a new cookie or change the way an existing cookie is used, we will update this page and, where required, prompt you for fresh consent through the CMP.