We use cookies to store your preferences (e.g. locale and language preferences) as you navigate through the site; for analytics purposes (i.e. to see how users browse around our website), which helps us to identify popular content; for interaction with social media; and, where applicable, to allow users to log in to our site.
Websites are ‘stateless’; each page exists in isolation, and so information can only be passed through URL parameters (the bits of text you sometimes see after a website address which start with a question mark), form parameters, or cookies. Cookies are the ‘cleanest’ and least intrusive (from a user’s point of view) and easiest to manage (from a website developer’s point of view) method for maintaining ‘state’ throughout your visit to a website.
Without the use of a cookie, you would be asked for the information stored in the cookie or to log in on every single page of the website!