A cookie is a tiny piece of information which is sent from a web server to your PC. It contains information defined by the web server which can instruct the cookie to either save into your PCs memory for the duration of the web browser session (temporary), or write to your hard disk for use again on another visit (permanent).
When you enter your login details for the site, the username and password are checked against records held in our database. If they match successfully, then the login is authenticated, and our server sends a temporary cookie back to your web browser. This cookie contains information which enables the server to identify the fact that you have already logged in successfully. This is required in order to check that you are authorised to view protected pages within the site, which are reserved for members only.
The permanent cookie which is sent to the hard disk contains ONLY your username. This is done simply to save you needing to enter the username when you visit the site again. Instead, the login form will already contain the username as it was when someone last logged in successfully from the PC.
Cookies can be disabled by using the Internet Options (or preferences) in your browser, in the Privacy section. However, please note that with cookies disabled, it will NOT be possible to log in the the members area of this site.
Click here to return to the login form.