Cookie policy

What are cookies?

A cookie is a small amount of data sent to your computer or mobile phone from a website. This means the website can recognise your device (your computer or mobile phone) if you return to the same site.

A cookie often includes a unique identifier, which is a randomly generated number. This is stored on your device's hard drive. Many cookies are automatically deleted after you finish using a website.

Cookies are not programs and do not collect information from your device.

Cookies make your experience of using websites faster and easier. They allow websites to create a customised view of pages to which you navigate. For example, they are commonly used to authenticate or identify registered users of a website without requiring them to sign in each time they access it. Other uses include maintaining a 'shopping basket' of goods a user has chosen to purchase, site personalisation (presenting different pages to different users) and tracking the pages a user has visited on a site for analysis purposes.

Cookies may come with or without an expiry date. Cookies without an expiry date exist until the browser is closed, while cookies with an expiry date may be stored by the device until the expiry date passes.

You can restrict or block cookies set by NHS Smokefree but this may limit your use of some functionality, such as customising the Smokefree homepage. Finding information about Smokefree (for example finding a local Stop Smoking Service), quit tools and other core pieces of content will still be possible even with cookies disabled.

Smokefree uses third-party suppliers who also set cookies on nhs.uk websites on our behalf to deliver the services that they are providing or to record usage. More information on the cookies set by NHS Choices and its third-party suppliers can be found on the NHS Choices Cookie Policy.

How to manage your cookies

Cookies are sent to your browser (whether you use Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari or any other browser) by a website and then stored in the cookies directory of your device.

To check and update your cookies settings, you will need to know what browser you are using and what version of it you have. You can usually find this out by opening the browser (just as if you were going to use the internet) and then clicking on 'Help' and then 'About'. This will give you information about the browser version you are using.

To find out how to allow, block, delete and manage the cookies on all standard web browsers, go to www.aboutcookies.org and select the browser and version you are using. You'll also find information about how to delete cookies from your computer.

If you use a mobile phone to browse the Smokefree website or other sites that use cookies, please refer to your handset manual for guidance.

Cookies used on the Smokefree website

The following are cookies you may come across on this site.