Cookies
WHAT ARE ‘COOKIES’?
‘Cookies’ are small text files that are stored by the browser (for example, Internet Explorer or Safari) on your computer or mobile phone. They allow websites to store things like user preferences. You can think of cookies as providing a ‘memory’ for the website, so that it can recognise you when you come back and respond appropriately.
HOW DO I TURN COOKIES OFF?
It is usually possible to stop your browser accepting cookies, or to stop it accepting cookies from a particular website. All modern browsers allow you to change your cookie settings. You can usually find these settings in the ‘options’ or ‘preferences’ menu of your browser. To understand these settings, the following links may be helpful, or you can use the ‘Help’ option in your browser for more details.
Cookie settings in Internet Explorer
Cookie settings in Firefox
Cookie settings in Chrome
Cookie settings in Safari web and iOS
TYPES OF COOKIES
Cookies fall into one of two categories – session or persistent – and the type of cookie is determined by how long each cookie is used:
- Session cookies only last for your online session and disappear from your computer or device when you close your browser.
- Persistent cookies stay on your computer or device after the browser has been closed and last for the period of time specified in the cookie. These persistent cookies are activated each time you visit the site where the cookie was generated.
COOKIES THAT WE USE
STATISTIC COOKIES
Statistic cookies help website owners to understand how visitors interact with websites by collecting and reporting information anonymously.
| Name | Description | Duration | Data type |
|---|---|---|---|
| _hjClosedSurveyInvites | Hotjar cookie that is set once a visitor interacts with an External Link Survey invitation modal. It is used to ensure that the same invite does not reappear if it has already been shown. | 365 days | Boolean true/false |
| _hjDonePolls | Hotjar cookie that is set once a visitor completes a survey using the On-site Survey widget. It is used to ensure that the same survey does not reappear if it has already been filled in. | 365 days | Boolean true/false |
| _hjMinimizedPolls | Hotjar cookie that is set once a visitor minimizes an On-site Survey widget. It is used to ensure that the widget stays minimized when the visitor navigates through your site. | 365 days | Boolean true/false |
| _hjShownFeedbackMessage | Hotjar cookie that is set when a visitor minimizes or completes Incoming Feedback. This is done so that the Incoming Feedback will load as minimized immediately if the visitor navigates to another page where it is set to show. | 365 days | Boolean true/false |
| _hjid | Hotjar cookie that is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the Hotjar User ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID. | 365 days | UUID |
| _hjRecordingLastActivity | This should be found in Session storage (as opposed to cookies). This gets updated when a visitor recording starts and when data is sent through the WebSocket (the visitor performs an action that Hotjar records). | Session | Numerical Value (Timestamp) |
| _hjTLDTest | When the Hotjar script executes we try to determine the most generic cookie path we should use, instead of the page hostname. This is done so that cookies can be shared across subdomains (where applicable). To determine this, we try to store the _hjTLDTest cookie for different URL substring alternatives until it fails. After this check, the cookie is removed. | Session | Boolean true/false |
| _hjUserAttributesHash | User Attributes sent through the Hotjar Identify API are cached for the duration of the session in order to know when an attribute has changed and needs to be updated. | Session | Hash |
| _hjCachedUserAttributes | This cookie stores User Attributes which are sent through the Hotjar Identify API, whenever the user is not in the sample. These attributes will only be saved if the user interacts with a Hotjar Feedback tool. | Session | JSON |
| _hjLocalStorageTest | This cookie is used to check if the Hotjar Tracking Script can use local storage. If it can, a value of 1 is set in this cookie. The data stored in_hjLocalStorageTest has no expiration time, but it is deleted almost immediately after it is created. | Under 100ms | Boolean true/false |
| _hjIncludedInPageviewSample | This cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the data sampling defined by your site's pageview limit. | 30 minutes | Boolean true/false |
| _hjIncludedInSessionSample | This cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the data sampling defined by your site's daily session limit. | 30 minutes | Boolean true/false |
| _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress | This cookie is used to detect the first pageview session of a user. This is a True/False flag set by the cookie. | 30 Minutes | Boolean true/false |
| _hjFirstSeen | This is set to identify a new user's first session. It stores a true/false value, indicating whether this was the first time Hotjar saw this user. It is used by Recording filters to identify new user sessions. | Session | Boolean true/false |
| hjViewportId | This stores information about the user viewport such as size and dimensions. | Session | UUID |
| _hjRecordingEnabled | This is added when a Recording starts and is read when the recording module is initialized to see if the user is already in a recording in a particular session. | Session | Boolean true/false |
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