Effective date: August 17, 2026 · Last updated: August 17, 2026
The short version
Reading this site sets cookies. Most of them come from Google, because we show Google ads and use Google Analytics, and a couple come from our own server so that pages load fast and so that you stay signed in if you have an account.
We do not set an advertising cookie ourselves, we do not run a Facebook pixel, and we do not run any advertising on wish list pages at all.
We show a cookie banner with two real buttons, Accept and Essential only, and it actually controls Google Analytics and Google Ads personalization rather than just saying it does. Section 6 covers exactly what each choice does and how to change your mind.
1. What a cookie is, in one paragraph
A cookie is a small text file a website asks your browser to keep. It is how a site remembers that you are signed in, or that you dismissed something, or that you have visited before. Some are set by us. Most of the ones on this site are set by other companies whose code runs on our pages. There are also two similar technologies we use, local storage and session storage, which do the same job in a different drawer of your browser. We cover those in section 5 because pretending they are not the same kind of thing would be dishonest.
2. Cookies our own site sets
| What sets it | Roughly what it is called | What it is for | How long |
|---|---|---|---|
| WordPress | wordpress_logged_in_*, wordpress_sec_* |
Keeps you signed in to your Armory account. Only ever set if you have an account and sign in. | Up to 14 days, because we sign you in with "remember me" |
| WordPress | wp-settings-* |
Small interface preferences for signed in users | About a year |
| WordPress | comment_author_* |
Only if you post a comment, and only to prefill the form next time | Under a year |
| LiteSpeed Cache | vary and front end cookies | Tells our cache whether to serve you the fast public copy of a page or a fresh one, which is how signed in users and private lists avoid being cached | Session or short lived |
| Our own cookie banner | ngn_consent |
Remembers whether you accepted or declined analytics and advertising cookies, so we do not ask you every visit | 12 months |
Our own plugin code sets no cookies of its own. We checked, and there is not a single setcookie call in the code we wrote.
3. Cookies other companies set on our pages
This is the honest part. These are not ours, we do not control what they contain, and each company's own policy governs them.
| Company | Why it is on the page | Typical cookies |
|---|---|---|
Google AdSense (publisher ca-pub-4122095204859778) |
We show automatic ads on articles. This is how we get paid. | Ad selection, frequency capping and measurement cookies, set from doubleclick.net and google.com |
Google Analytics 4 (G-6SWVPBWSQF), loaded by Google Site Kit |
Tells us which articles people actually read | _ga, _ga_* |
Google Tag Manager (GTM-PXFXR5P) |
Present on every page | We opened the container and checked directly: it has zero tags configured, so it currently loads nothing of its own |
YouTube, via the no-cookie embed domain (youtube-nocookie.com) |
Only on the two pages with a video embedded | Google's reduced cookie set for the no-cookie embed, and whatever Google itself sets if you interact with the player |
| Gravatar, run by Automattic | Only where an old comment shows an avatar | Usually none, but your browser does contact them |
| Amazon | Only on older list pages that still load a product photo from Amazon's own servers, and whenever you click an affiliate link | Amazon's own |
| eBay | Only when you click an eBay Partner Network link | eBay's own |
Two things we want to be plain about:
- Clicking an affiliate link is a real handover. Amazon or eBay learn the visit came from us, so we get paid if you buy. They do not tell us who you are, and we never see your name, your address or what else is in your basket.
- A hotlinked product photo tells Amazon you loaded that page, even if you never click anything. That is a real disclosure and it is why it is in this table. We are working through those images.
- We checked for anything we had not told you about, and found one thing. A Zoho testing script was running sitewide that nobody currently at NerfGuns.net had installed or knew about. It is removed. A years-inactive legacy analytics tag left over from before this site's current era, which collected nothing since Google retired that product in 2023, is also gone.
4. Ads, and children
We run Google's automatic ads on articles. We do not run them on wish list pages, and that exclusion is enforced in our own code rather than as a setting somebody could forget.
Advertising to a mixed audience that includes children carries specific obligations. Toy-review and buying-guide pages are treated as directed at a mixed, partly-young audience, with personalized ad targeting limited there; modification, battery-safety and competitive-play pages are treated as general-audience content.
5. Local storage, which is not a cookie but is your business anyway
Our wish list uses your browser's local storage rather than cookies for two things:
ng_armory_guest_v1. If you build a wish list without an account, this is where it lives. It holds a short list of product keys and a timestamp. It never leaves your browser, unless you decide to create an account, at which point it becomes the starting contents of your list. Clearing your browser data deletes it and we cannot get it back.ng_armory_plain. Remembers whether you prefer the plain English view of a list.
The Chrome extension stores its settings and its access token in Chrome's own extension storage on your machine, and deliberately does not sync them to your Google account. That is described on the Extension Privacy page.
6. How to turn things off
In your browser. Every browser can block or clear cookies. In Chrome, Settings then Privacy and security. In Safari, Settings then Privacy. In Firefox, Settings then Privacy and Security. Blocking all cookies will sign you out of your Armory account and may make pages behave oddly, which is true of every site and not just ours.
Ads specifically. Google's own controls are at myadcenter.google.com and cover personalised advertising across every site that uses Google ads, not only this one.
Analytics specifically. Google publishes an opt out add on for browsers at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, our cookie banner honours it automatically as a decline for analytics and advertising, with no click required from you.
Ad blockers. We are not going to pretend to be sad about it. Ads pay for the site, so turning them off here costs us money, and it is still your browser and your choice.
7. Our consent banner
The first time you visit, a bar at the bottom of the screen offers two real choices: Accept, which allows Google Analytics and personalized Google Ads; and Essential only, which keeps both off. Neither choice affects the cookies in section 2, which are the ones the site needs to work at all and are never optional.
Declining does more than stop new cookies: it also clears any Google Analytics cookie already set in that browser. Your choice is remembered for 12 months, in the ngn_consent cookie described in section 2, so you are not asked again until it expires or you clear your cookies. You can change your mind at any time by clearing that cookie and reloading the page.
This is a tool we built ourselves. It is not a badge that says it works, it actually stops the relevant Google signals from firing until you accept, verified by checking the browser's own cookie jar before and after each choice.
8. Questions
Write to info@nerfguns.net. If a cookie appears on this site that is not in the table above, tell us and we will either explain it or remove it.
Postal address: 4001 S Pine St, #110542, Tacoma, WA 98411-9994
Effective date: August 17, 2026