What Are Cookies?
A cookie is a small text file that a website asks your browser to store on your device when you visit. Cookies are not programs and cannot execute code — they are passive data files. Their primary function is to give websites a form of short-term memory, allowing them to recognize you across page loads and sessions.
Cookies are differentiated by their origin (first-party, set by hwebview.com itself, vs. third-party, set by external services we integrate), their lifespan (session cookies that disappear when you close your browser vs. persistent cookies that remain until their expiry date or until you delete them), and their purpose (functional, analytical, marketing, etc.).
Similar technologies — such as browser local storage, session storage, and web beacons — work on comparable principles. Where we use these alongside cookies, we treat them under the same policy and subject them to the same consent requirements.
Why We Use Cookies
hwebview.com uses cookies for three distinct reasons. First, certain cookies are technically indispensable — without them, the platform simply cannot function. Logging in, maintaining a secure session, protecting against cross-site attacks, and keeping your subscription active all depend on essential cookies. These cannot be disabled without breaking your experience.
Second, we use analytics cookies to understand how our subscribers interact with the platform. Knowing which videos load slowly, which pages generate the most drop-off, and what search terms go unanswered helps us allocate our development resources more effectively. All analytics data is pseudonymous — we see behavior patterns, not personally identified individual records.
Third, functional cookies remember choices you make to personalize your experience: your preferred video playback quality, which topics you've flagged as interesting, and your viewing progress through longer course series. These make returning to hwebview.com meaningfully more convenient.
We do not currently use cookies for advertising, remarketing, or behavioral profiling. We do not share cookie data with advertising networks or data brokers.
Cookies We Use
The table below lists all cookies currently active on hwebview.com, organized by category. We update this list whenever we add, modify, or remove a cookie from our platform.
| Cookie Name | Purpose | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| session_id | Maintains your authenticated login session across page navigations. Invalidated on logout or after a configurable idle timeout. | Session |
| auth_token | Stores an encrypted authentication token that allows the server to verify your identity and subscription tier on each request without requiring a new database lookup. | 30 days |
| csrf_token | A cryptographic nonce included in all form submissions and API calls to protect your account against Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks. | Session |
| Cookie Name | Purpose | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| _ga | Google Analytics primary tracking cookie. Assigns a unique pseudonymous identifier to distinguish individual users. Used to calculate visit counts, session durations, and traffic sources in aggregate reports. | 2 years |
| _gid | Google Analytics secondary identifier used to distinguish users within a 24-hour window. Shorter lifespan provides more granular daily visitor counts without long-term tracking. | 24 hours |
| analytics_session | Internal first-party session identifier used by our own analytics pipeline to group page views and video events into coherent visit sessions without relying solely on Google's measurement. | Session |
| Cookie Name | Purpose | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| user_prefs | Stores your selected UI preferences, including preferred video playback quality, autoplay settings, subtitle display, and notification frequency. Allows preferences to persist between sessions without requiring a database write on every change. | 1 year |
| video_progress | Records your exact playback position within each video you watch, enabling the platform to resume from where you left off when you return to an in-progress video. Stored locally and synced to your account when signed in. | 90 days |
| language | Stores your preferred interface language and regional date/time formatting preferences. Currently supports English (US) and is reserved for future internationalization rollout. | 1 year |
How to Manage Cookies
You have several options for controlling cookies on your device. The most direct method is through your browser's built-in privacy settings, which allow you to view, delete, and block cookies on a per-site or global basis. Note that disabling essential cookies on hwebview.com will prevent you from logging in and using subscription features.
- Open the three-dot menu (top right)
- Go to Settings → Privacy and security
- Click "Cookies and other site data"
- Add hwebview.com to block or allow list
- Open the hamburger menu (top right)
- Go to Settings → Privacy & Security
- Under "Cookies and Site Data" click Manage
- Search for hwebview.com and remove or block
- Open Safari menu → Settings (or Preferences)
- Click the Privacy tab
- Click "Manage Website Data"
- Search hwebview and click Remove
- Open the three-dot menu (top right)
- Go to Settings → Cookies and site permissions
- Click "Manage and delete cookies"
- Use the See all cookies option to find hwebview.com
Beyond browser controls, you can opt out of Google Analytics tracking specifically by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on. This prevents the _ga and _gid cookies from transmitting data about your visits to Google's servers, while still allowing the rest of our platform to function normally.
Cookie Consent
Updates to This Policy
We update this Cookie Policy when we add or remove cookies, change our analytics providers, or when legal requirements necessitate revisions. The "Last Updated" date at the top of the page always reflects when the most recent change was made.
For changes that materially alter our cookie practices — such as introducing marketing cookies for the first time, or integrating a new third-party analytics partner — we will notify registered users by email at least 14 days before the change takes effect. We will also refresh our consent banner so existing users have the opportunity to review and update their preferences before the new cookies become active.
Minor amendments, such as adding a new cookie within an existing category that serves the same stated purpose, or updating the retention period of an existing cookie to a shorter duration, will be made without prior notice but will be reflected in the cookie table above and the updated "Last Updated" date.
Contact
If you have questions about this Cookie Policy, would like to exercise a consent withdrawal, or want to understand more about a specific cookie listed above, please reach out to our privacy team directly.