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Privacy & Cookies

Privacy is important, especially in the context of internet pr0n. Therefore, this page explains the use of personal information on this website.

Cookies – what they are and what they’re for

In the olden days, when the internet was young, web pages looked the same to everyone who visited. Nowadays, websites are increasingly interactive and personalized. A logical consequence of personalization is that in one way or another, information about the user needs to be stored.

Basically, this user information can be stored in two ways: either on the site’s server, or on the user’s own computer. For user information to be stored on the site’s server, it’s necessary to be able to identify individual users somehow in order to link visitors with saved preferences — this usually means creating an account and logging in. When the data is stored on the user’s own computer, this isn’t necessary, because the visitor brings his own data next time he visits.

This second way of storing information is done with cookies. Cookies are small text files that websites use to ‘remember’ things about their visitors. You can delete the cookies that are stored on your computer at any time.
Cookies can also be used to track or spy on people, which has given this simple device a bad name. But as always, it’s what you do with it that counts. (Personally, I’d rather keep control over this kind of information myself.) Hence this article to explain what we use cookies for on this site. Of course you can always turn off the use of cookies in your browser, and in that case you’ll miss the functions described below.

Where are these cookies?

Cookies are stored by your browser, so where you can view the cookies you’ve collected, depends on your browser.

In Firefox, go to Tools (or ‘Edit’ if you’re on Linux) > Options > Privacy > Remove individual cookies. You’ll get a handy popup list of all the cookies your browser has stored, sorted by site. You can search for the site you need, or simply scroll down the list.

Chrome has a similar list of cookies at Customize & Control (the wrench icon) > Under the Bonnet > Privacy > Content Settings > All cookies and site data. You’ll reach Safari’s cookie list by clicking Setting (the gear icon) > Preferences > Security > Show Cookies.

Internet Explorer does not have a way of displaying a list of cookies (the folks who use IE only get confused by these sort of highly technical things) though you can get to your cookies via Internet Options > General > Browsing History > Settings > Show Files but that will just open the directory where IE stores all temporary files. (But then, if you’re web-wise enough to be interested in cookies, you shouldn’t be using IE anyway).

Which cookies does FaramirFiction use?

Which cookies your browser will store for FaramirFiction, depends on the level at which you engage with the site. If you only come to read stories, you’ll only need the cookie to prevent the popup warning popping up again and again, and the cookie to tell whether or not you like your adult content filtered out. When you post comments (please do! it inspires and motivates authors to write more!), you can use cookies to store your details, so you don’t have to type in your name and email address every time. If you’re an author or artist posting your own work, the cookies for the ‘back end’ of the site also come into play.

Hassseenwarning

When you first arrive at this site, there is a popup image informing you the site is for adults only. At that point, you can choose to either leave the site, or continue on to the site. When you continue on to the site, a cookie is stored on your computer with the name ‘hasseenwarning’, to indicate you have seen the warning.

The next time a page is loaded, it checks if you already have this cookie (an thus, if you’ve already seen and accepted the warning), and only if the cookie is not present, it shows you the popup warning. In other words, this cookie prevents the popup coming up again and again on every page you visit. The cookie is automatically expires after 30 days, after which you’ll again be shown the popup.

Style show/hide

The filter setting controls whether or not adult content (rated R and NC-17) is shown. By default, all content is show and no cookie is needed, but you can hide the naughty bits by clicking the ‘hide’ link in the right side menu, which stores a cookie in your browser. This hides all adult stories and art until you click the ‘show’ link, or clear your cookies.

txp_name/email/web

In the commenting form, there is a ‘Remember me’ / ‘Forget me’ checkbox. If you tick the ‘Remember me’ box (on by default), your name, email address and website (if you’ve entered one) will be stored in a cookie, so that next time those fields will already be filled in for you, making the commenting process a lot quicker and easier. If you then tick the ‘Forget me’ box, this data will be removed.

txp_login/remember

If you have an account to post your own work, the login and remember cookies are used to remember your login (so it’s already filled in on the login screen, and you only have to enter your password), and whether or not you want to be logged in automatically.

back end cookies

The back end, or editing side of the site comes with a number of options, such as how you like t have your list of articles sorted (by posting date, title, etc). Obviously, these cookies only come into play when you log in to edit your own stories or artwork. Since this functionality is used by a limited group of people, and I’ve already procrastinated long enough, I’ll leave a write up of those functions for another day. (Though of course you can always get in touch if you can’t wait;))

Privacy

Email addresses

When you post a comment, you are asked to enter your name and email address. By all means, enter a pseudonym and the email address you set up under a false name. We ask you to enter an email address to the author or artist on whose work you are commenting, can get in touch with you.
Email address are never posted on the site and are only visible to the author and the (all-seeing, all-knowing) administrators.

User Agent and IP data

Whenever you visit a page on the web —any page on the web, not just ours—, your browser sends a request for that page to the server that hosts the site. This request includes details about your browser, operating system and things like the size of your screen and whether or not you have javascript enabled (your so-called user agent), as well as your IP address. In this, FaramirFiction.com is no different from all other sites on the web.

These requests are logged so we are able to fix errors, and prevent future attacks by blocking spammers from accessing the site. This is not a feature we can turn off even if we’d want to – the site is not hosted on our own computers but at a hosting company, and they have a vested interest in protecting their systems against attacks. Such logs are kept for 3 days, and only aggregate data (without information on individual requests) are stored long term.

Filter

Hide | Show adult content

Adult content is shown. [what's this?]

Adult content is hidden.
NB: This site is still for adults only, even with the adult content filter on! [what's this?]