Privacy & Cookies

The short version

Zelda 64 Central does not set cookies. There are no user accounts. The site does not collect personal data of any kind. There is an anonymous visit counter, described in full below — it cannot identify you, and you can turn it off.

What we use

  • Visit counter: A first-party, anonymous page-view counter (details below). No cookies, no IP addresses stored, no fingerprinting, no identifiers of any kind. No GDPR banner is required because no personal data is collected.
  • Progress tracking: If you choose to use the “My Progress” feature, your progress is saved in your browser’s localStorage only. Nothing is transmitted anywhere. Clearing your browser data will reset it. Your progress will not follow you to other devices or browsers.
  • Theme and version preferences: Stored in your browser’s localStorage. Same as above.
  • Map submissions: only if you add something to the interactive map, and only what you type (details below).

The visit counter, in full

I want to know roughly how many people use the site, without knowing anything about who they are. So the counter is deliberately built to make that impossible.

When a page loads, your browser sends exactly this — and nothing else:

{
  "site": "z64central.com",
  "path": "/walkthrough/deku-tree/",
  "ref": "google.com",
  "pwa": false,
  "unique": true
}
  • path is the page you’re on. ref is only the domain you arrived from (blank if you typed the address or came from a bookmark) — never the full URL.
  • pwa is whether the site was opened from a home-screen icon.
  • unique is a flag your own browser sets: it stores today’s date in localStorage and reports true only on the first page you view today. The server never works out who is “new” — your browser decides and simply says yes or no.

There are no cookies, and no identifier is sent, generated, or stored. Your IP address is not retained: the server needs it momentarily to receive the request (as every web server does), and it is excluded from logging. There is no way to link two visits to the same person.

Your browser also avoids double-counting: it remembers the last 30 minutes of pages you viewed, in localStorage, and won’t re-count a reload within that window.

localStorage keys this uses: tallySkip, tallyRecent, lastTallyDay.

Opting out: set tallySkip to 1 in your browser’s developer console and that device stops being counted, permanently:

localStorage.setItem('tallySkip', '1')

If the payload above ever changes, this page gets updated in the same commit.

Map submissions, in full

On the interactive map, Add something to this map sends exactly this:

  • what you’re adding (for example “Gold Skulltula”), or for a suggested fix, which pin it’s about
  • the game version, your title and details, and the spot on the map
  • a screenshot, if you attach one. Your browser shrinks it and saves it as a fresh JPEG before sending, which strips hidden photo data such as GPS location and camera details.

No name, email, account, IP address, or browser details are stored with it. Submissions wait on this site’s own server (hosted by Cloudflare) until I review them. Approved ones go on the map, so the title, details, and screenshot are then public. Don’t put anything personal in a submission, like your name, or a username showing in the corner of a screenshot. Every submission is deleted from the queue once it’s approved or rejected.

Cloudflare sees your IP address for a moment to stop the form being flooded, as it does for every request; it is not saved with the submission. If you send too many too quickly and get blocked, Cloudflare’s security log keeps a record of that blocked request, including your IP address, for a limited time.

If you tick Keep this submission private, nothing is sent at all: the note is saved in your browser’s localStorage (z64.map.notes), and only you can see it.

Third parties

  • The visit counter described above is a first-party service run by me (tally-15838356607.us-central1.run.app), not a third-party analytics company. It and map submissions (if you make one) are the only places this site sends data. Nothing is shared with anyone.
  • YouTube: some pages show a video thumbnail with a play button. Until you click it, nothing is loaded from YouTube at all — the thumbnail is served from this site, so YouTube and Google never see you. If you click play, the video is embedded in privacy-enhanced mode (youtube-nocookie.com) and, from that point on, playback is subject to Google’s privacy policy. Links out to YouTube are subject to the same policy.
  • Amazon: some pages link to Amazon to buy a game. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Those links carry a tag (z64central07-20) so Amazon can credit a purchase to this site; the price you pay is the same either way, and nothing I write is influenced by it. Until you click one, nothing is loaded from Amazon — no pixels, no scripts, no iframes — so Amazon has no idea you were here. Once you follow a link you are on Amazon’s site and subject to Amazon’s privacy notice.

Contact

For questions about this policy, email dan@z64central.com.

Last updated: 2026-11-02

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