Up to the point where I turned on comments on blog posts, this site didn't set any cookies or store any other data on your computer.

I don't track any visits to this site, so I had no need to leave anything on your computer to know it's you when you come back.

That changed with the introduction of comments. On this site, you type comments into a tool called cactus-comments that is embedded into each blog post's page. The comment is recorded in a type of database called a "matrix room". If you have a matrix ID, you can log in before commenting, and – if you don't log in – your comment will be recorded as having been made by a guest.

In order, therefore, to prevent you from being forced to log in every time you come back, cactus-comments will store the following details in your browser's "local storage"¹:

• accessToken : a long, randomly-generated sequence of letters and numbers that will uniquely identify the matrix login session that cactus-comments creates for you.
• homeserverUrl : the URL of the homeserver that hosts the matrix room. This will always be https://matrix.gibiris.org.
• kind : user if you're logged into your matrix account and guest if you aren't
• txnId : Essentially, the count of the number of comments you've made; used to prevent conflicts with previous comments.
• userId : Either your own matrix userid (if you log in) or @<number>:matrix.gibiris.org, which will be the pseudonym to be attached to comments you make.

You can always reset these by removing locally-stored data for the site https://www.gibiris.org if you don't want them to be retained. I won't get into describing how that can be done, as different browsers do it differently, and you will want to manage exactly how your browser does it anyway, and I can't anticipate all the variations.

I can't offer a mechanism to prevent these details from being stored with your browser, largely because I don't know how to. If you do, leave a comment for me at the end of this post, please?

Lastly, as mentioned earlier, I have no interest in counting visits to this site, so the only use to which these details are put is to allow commenting and to allow the association of comments by the same person.