Legal
Cookie Policy
Effective 14 July 2026
Last updated: 14 July 2026
This explains the cookies and similar storage BrowseStay uses. It's short, because we use very few.
1. The short version
We use no advertising cookies, no third-party trackers, and no cross-site tracking. The cookies we set are either required for the site to work, or a single first-party cookie that helps us count visits without identifying you.
2. What a cookie is
A small file your browser stores for a site. "Similar technologies" includes localStorage, chrome.storage (in our extension), and service-worker caches — we cover those here too, because pretending they aren't storage would be dishonest.
3. Cookies we set on browsestay.com
| NameTypePurposeExpires | |||
browsestay_session | Strictly necessary | Keeps your session — required to log in and to submit forms safely | When you close your browser / on logout |
XSRF-TOKEN | Strictly necessary | Security. Prevents cross-site request forgery on forms | Session |
bs_sess | Analytics (first-party) | Lets us count one visit once, without knowing who you are. See section 4 | Session-based |
We do not set: advertising cookies, remarketing pixels, social media trackers, or any cookie that follows you to other websites.
4. About the analytics cookie (bs_sess)
This is the only non-essential cookie, and it's worth explaining honestly.
We use it to create a one-way hash. The hash lets us tell "these five page views were one visit" without storing your identity. If the cookie isn't there, we fall back to hashing your IP address and browser type instead — and we store only the hash, never the raw IP.
What it's used for: telling a property owner "your listing was viewed 40 times and clicked 6 times", and telling us which searches return no results so we can fix them.
What it is not used for: advertising, profiling, selling, or following you to other sites.
Being straight with you: because the fallback derives from your IP and browser, we describe this as pseudonymous, not fully anonymous. Under laws like the GDPR it may still count as personal data. Some sites would call this "anonymous analytics". We'd rather be accurate.
5. Other storage we use
| TechnologyWhereWhat it holdsWhy | |||
| Service worker cache | Your browser | Copies of our CSS, JS and pages | So the site loads fast and shows a useful page offline. It never caches live listing data or your clicks. |
chrome.storage.local | Our Chrome extension | The list of verified direct-booking properties | So matching happens on your device, not on our server |
Neither contains personal information about you.
6. Third-party requests
We don't embed third-party trackers, but two things load from outside our servers, and those providers will see your IP address as a normal part of serving a file:
- Google Fonts (
fonts.googleapis.com,fonts.gstatic.com) — our typefaces. - Property image hosts (e.g.
assets.guesty.com) — photos supplied by owners are served from their own systems.
Neither sets an advertising cookie through us.
7. Your choices
- Block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Strictly-necessary cookies can be blocked, but logging in and submitting forms will stop working.
- Opt out of analytics by enabling "Do Not Track" or blocking cookies for this site — or just email privacy@browsestay.com and ask.
- The extension stores everything locally. Uninstalling it removes that data.
Because we set no advertising cookies, there's no ad-preferences panel to manage — there's nothing to opt out of.
8. Changes
If we add a cookie, this page changes first, and the date at the top updates.