Cookie and storage policy
Effective date:
This policy explains what The Star Battle (thestarbattle.com) stores in your browser, why it does so, and how you can control it. Read it together with our Privacy Policy.
In short
- The Star Battle’s own pages set no cookies. Our host may set a short-lived security cookie, described below.
- It keeps 11 items in your browser’s local storage, listed below. They hold your game and your settings, and your answer to the consent banner. They stay on your device and are never sent to us or to anyone else.
- It keeps copies of its own pages and files in your browser’s cache, so that repeat visits load quickly.
- Nothing measures how you play. The banner asks whether we may, but measurement is not switched on, so nothing is sent whatever you answer.
- There are no advertisements on this site.
Cookies, local storage and the cache
A cookie is a small piece of text that a website asks your browser to keep and that the browser sends back to the site with each visit, which is how sites recognise a returning browser.
Local storage is space in your browser where a site can keep information on your device. Unlike a cookie, it is not sent anywhere with your visits, and only pages from the same site can read it.
A service worker is a small script that a site installs in your browser. Ours keeps copies of the site’s pages and files in the browser’s cache, so a repeat visit does not have to wait for the network.
Privacy law in many places, including the UK and the EU, treats all of these alike: a site may store or read information on your device without asking only when doing so is strictly necessary to provide a service you have asked for. Everything this site stores today meets that test: it is your game, the settings you chose, and notes that stop the site repeating itself. Nothing is stored for measurement or advertising.
If Cloudflare, our host, needs to check that a visitor is not an automated attack, it may set a short-lived security cookie (__cf_bm or cf_clearance). That cookie is strictly necessary to keep the site available and is not used to track you.
What The Star Battle stores
- Strictly necessary
- Needed for something you asked for: playing the game, keeping your progress, and remembering your answer to the banner so that it is not asked on every visit.
- Strictly necessary: a setting
- Remembers a choice you made, such as theme or sound, or a message you have already seen, so that the site works as you set it. Stored only to provide the game you are using.
- Measurement
- Counts how the site is used. Only ever with your consent. Nothing in this category is stored today.
Every item is kept under a name, its key, that begins with qa:, so you can find it in your browser’s developer tools. The table is generated from the site’s code, and an automated test checks it against what the code writes.
| Key | What it holds | Category |
|---|---|---|
qa:starbattle:v1:progress | Today's daily board as you left it, so a reload does not lose it. | Strictly necessary |
qa:starbattle:v1:stats | Your streak, the days you solved, solve counts, best times, and the dates you earned awards. | Strictly necessary |
qa:starbattle:v1:device | A random code for this browser, so solves on two devices add up when you restore a backup. It stays here and says nothing about you. | Strictly necessary |
qa:starbattle:v1:consent | Your answer to the consent banner, and when you gave it. | Strictly necessary |
qa:starbattle:v1:theme | Light or dark, if you chose one rather than following your device. | Strictly necessary: a setting |
qa:starbattle:v1:sound | Whether sound is on. | Strictly necessary: a setting |
qa:starbattle:v1:clock | Whether the clock is hidden while you play. | Strictly necessary: a setting |
qa:starbattle:v1:auto-exclude | Whether cells around a star are crossed off for you, and whether that was offered. | Strictly necessary: a setting |
qa:starbattle:v1:play | The size and difficulty you last picked. | Strictly necessary: a setting |
qa:starbattle:v1:tutorial | Whether you finished or dismissed the tutorial, so it is not offered again. | Strictly necessary: a setting |
qa:starbattle:v1:conflict-notice | How many times the note about a broken rule has been shown. | Strictly necessary: a setting |
Local storage has no expiry date. Each item stays until you clear it, or until your browser removes it.
The offline cache
On your first visit, the site installs a service worker. From then on it keeps copies of the site’s pages, its code and styles, and its puzzle files in caches whose names begin with qa-sw-. They hold only files that anyone can download from the site, never anything about you or your play.
When you are online, pages are always fetched fresh; a cached copy is used only when the network does not answer within a few seconds. Cached pages and puzzle files are replaced each day when the site is rebuilt. Code and style files are kept longer, and the oldest are removed as newer ones arrive. We treat the cache as strictly necessary to provide the site as you use it: it holds only the site’s own public files, it lets the game keep working when your connection drops, and it never stores or reads anything about you.
Measurement
On your first visit, a banner asks whether we may measure how the game is played: which puzzles are started and finished, how long they take, and which features, such as hints and sharing, are used. We would use this to tune the difficulty to real play.
Measurement is not switched on. Whatever you answer, nothing about your play leaves your device and no cookie is set. Your answer is stored, with the time you gave it, so that the banner does not ask again.
Before measurement is switched on, this policy will be updated to name each cookie or item it uses, who provides it, and how long it lasts, and we will ask everyone again, naming the provider. An answer given before then will not count as agreement to it. Nothing will be sent before you answer, and nothing at all if you decline. Declining never changes how the game works: your progress and settings are saved either way, because saving them is part of the game and not measurement.
Changing your answer
You can change your answer at any time: choose Privacy choices at the bottom of any page. The banner opens again and shows your current answer, and whatever you choose replaces it, with the new time. Your progress and your streak are not touched. Because measurement is not switched on, your answer does not change anything that is sent today.
Controlling storage in your browser
Your browser lets you see, block and delete what sites store. The controls are usually in its privacy settings, under a name such as “Cookies and site data”, and most browsers let you clear one site without affecting others.
- If you block storage for this site, the game still works, but it cannot remember your game, your settings or your answer, so the banner will ask on every visit.
- In a private or incognito window, everything is deleted when you close the window.
- Some browsers delete a site’s storage on their own after a period without a visit. Safari, for example, does so after seven days of use in which you have not visited the site, unless you have added it to your Home Screen.
- Each of our games is a separate site, and your browser keeps each site’s storage apart. One game cannot read another’s, and clearing one leaves the others as they are.
Clearing this site’s data deletes your streak permanently. It removes every item listed above, including your streak, your solve history and your awards. They exist only on this device. We have no copy and cannot restore them. The site does not yet offer a way to back them up.
Advertising
There are no advertisements on this site and no advertising cookies. If that changes, a consent tool certified by Google will be added first, and this policy will be extended to list every advertising cookie and partner before any advertisement is shown.
Links to other sites
Links from this site lead to sites with their own policies. We do not control what they store.
Changes to this policy
When what the site stores changes, this policy changes with it, and the date at the top of the page is updated.
Contact
The Star Battle is operated by Andrei Kovalev. For questions about this policy, write to support@mixiebar.com.