In order to remember your settings, we need to store them somewhere. As we do not store any information about you on our server, we instead need to store your preferred settings on your device using little text files called cookies.
It is important to note that we do not store any information about your searches in the cookies on your machine. The cookies we store do not affect your privacy or your search experience in any way.
Here is a list of the cookies we store and their function...
| ss_a ss_b … ss_z |
User Settings: We send some of your user settings to our server in order to allow us to optimize and filter your search results and improve your overall site experience. None of this information is stored on our servers after the cookies have expired or have been deleted. None of the information in this cookie compromises your privacy: it does not contain your search terms or any personally identifiable information, beyond the country code you selected when performing your search. A more detailed list of which settings are stored can be found in the table below. |
|---|---|
| vpw | Viewport Width: In order to optimize layout for pages which are proxied and served via an iframe, we send your browser's viewport pixel width to our server and discard it immediately after serving the proxied content. |
A complete list of the user settings we store in cookies is given in the table below. These settings are stored in cookies named ss_a, ss_b, etc..
| acceptedCookies | Whether you have explicitly opted in to the use of cookies |
|---|---|
| animateImages | Whether the home page wallpaper images should animate during transition |
| autoSuggest | Whether to show autosuggestions in the search input |
| backgroundSize | A user setting determining how the home page wallpaper image is displayed |
| charities | Which charities you have selected in the charity search options |
| charitySearchCounts | A history of the charities you have voted for by searching on SearchScene |
| charityCountYear | The year during which your charity searches have been counted |
| categories | Media item categories available for the home page wallpaper images and videos |
| categoryIds | The media item categories currently selected in the home page sidebar filter |
| cc | The currently selected or detected user country code (e.g. GB) |
| ccFallbackUsed | A value which records whether country code could not be detected automatically and has not been chosen manually |
| displayClock | A user setting determining whether the home page clock should display |
| displayHomePageMessage homePagePromptWaitStart |
Whether the 'Come Here Often?' home page message should be displayed, and when |
| doubleProxy | Whether proxied content served from SearchScene's servers should be downloaded via a further proxy server |
|
firstVisit firstVisitItemId |
A timestamp and image/video ID of your first visit used to calculate the ordering of home page wallpaper images |
| freshness | Bing search 'freshness' settings (Off, Day, Week, Month) |
| items | Media items (images and videos) available for the home page wallpaper |
| loadVideos | Whether to load videos as well as images for the home page wallpaper |
| loadHDImages | Whether to load HD images for the home page wallpaper |
| loadQHDImages | Whether to load QHD images for the home page wallpaper |
| mkt | The currently selected or detected user country 'market' (e.g. en-GB) |
| pinnedItemId | The current pinned home page image |
| proxyLocation | For double proxying, this is the geographical location of the further proxy server |
| safeSearch | 'SafeSearch' setting for filtering search results content (Off, Moderate, Strict) |
| searchBox | The position of the home page's draggable search box |
| searchOpenInNewWindow | Whether search result links should open in a new browser tab/window |
| searchResultsPerPage | How many search results should be returned per page (10, 20, 50) |
| searchSuggestions | Whether to show search suggestions |
| searchType | The type of search you want to carry out (e.g. web, image) |
| searchVideoHover | Whether video thumbnails should automatically play when possible on mouse cursor hover |
| searchVideoBehaviour | How clicked video thumbnails in video search results should be treated (play here, leave, prompt) |
| searchVideoResolution | A video search filter based on video resolution |
| searchVideoLength | A video search filter based on video duration |
| searchVideoPricing | A video search filter based on pricing |
| searchImageSize | An image search filter based on image size |
| searchImageType | An image search filter based on image type (e.g. Photo, Clipart) |
| searchImageColor | An image search filter based on image color (e.g. ColorOnly, Monochrome) |
| searchImageAspect | An image search filter based on image aspect (All, Square, Wide, Tall) |
| searchImageContent | An image search filter based on image content (All, Face, Portrait) |
| searchImageLicense | An image search filter based on image license (e.g. Public, Share) |
| searchNewsSortBy | News search sorting (Relevance, Date) |
| searchNewsCategory | Previous news search category selected |
| searchThumbProxyWeb | Whether thumbnail images in web searches should be proxied via SearchScene's servers |
| searchThumbProxyImages | Whether thumbnail images in image searches should be proxied via SearchScene's servers |
| searchThumbProxyVideos | Whether thumbnail images in video searches should be proxied via SearchScene's servers |
| searchThumbProxyNews | Whether thumbnail images in news searches should be proxied via SearchScene's servers |
| showSearchThumbnails | Whether to show thumbnails in web search results |
| userImage | Whether there is a user-provided home page image. (Note that user image itself is stored in your browser's local storage and is not accessed by SearchScene or sent to our servers.) |
| wallpaperOn | Whether you have set the home page wallpaper on/off |
| warnOnMobileProxyClick | Whether to display a warning prompt when following a proxy link on mobile |
| warnOnMobileUnproxyClick | Whether to display a warning prompt when unproxying a proxied page on mobile |
| wikipediaSummaries | Whether to show Wikipedia summaries as part of search results |