Cookies and storage
Bright Atoms sets no cookies, counts no visits and loads nothing from anyone else. This page lists the one thing it can keep on your device, and what it reads from your device to work.
The short version
- No cookies. No analytics. No adverts. No social media buttons or embedded videos.
- One thing is kept, and only if you press the Motion button: whether you want animation on or off.
- Nothing kept on your device is ever sent to us.
- There is no cookie banner, because nothing here needs your consent. You are told, and you can clear it whenever you like.
1. What this page covers
A cookie is a small file that a website asks your browser to save. Browsers offer other places to keep things as well, such as local storage and session storage. UK law treats all of them alike: the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR), regulation 6, says a website may not store information on your device, or read information from it, unless you have been given clear information and have agreed, or an exception applies.
This page covers every use of your device’s storage by brightatoms.com, and the ways the site reads from your device. How we handle personal data in general is in our privacy policy.
2. What Bright Atoms keeps on your device
| Name | Where | What it holds | When it is set | How long it lasts | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| brightatoms-motion | Local storage | The word “on” or “off” | Only when you press the Motion button at the top of a page | Until you press it again, clear this site’s data, or your browser clears it | So that animation stays the way you set it on every page and next time |
That is the full list. Nothing else is written to local storage, session storage, IndexedDB or cookies. You can check for yourself in your browser’s developer tools, under the Application or Storage tab.
Your browser also keeps its ordinary cache of the pages, fonts and pictures it has fetched from us, so that it needn’t download them again. That is part of how browsers work and isn’t something the site does.
3. What Bright Atoms reads from your device
Some of what the site does depends on facts about your device. These are read inside your browser, used straight away and not sent to us or to anyone else.
- Reduced motion. Whether you have asked your device to keep animation to a minimum. If you have, and haven’t used the Motion button, the simulations start paused.
- Screen. The size of the window and the pixel density, so that the simulations are drawn sharply and fit the screen. On a small screen, the orbital pictures use fewer points so that they draw quickly.
- Whether a simulation is on screen. Animations run only while you can see them, to save your battery.
4. Why none of this needs a banner
PECR lets a website store or read information without consent in some situations. The ones relevant here are in Schedule A1 to the regulations, most of which came into force on 5 February 2026 under the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025.
- Adapting the site to your preferences. This covers storage or access whose only purpose is to adapt how the website looks or works to your preferences, as long as you are told clearly what it is for and have a simple, free way to object. The Motion setting, and reading your reduced-motion setting and screen size, are used for that and nothing else. You are told here, and you can object by clearing your site data. The site works without any of it.
- Strictly necessary for a service you asked for. This covers technical storage that is strictly necessary for a service you have requested, including recording selections you have made on a website. Your choice on the Motion button is a selection you have made.
We use these things for the purpose we have given and no other. They aren’t used for measurement, advertising or tracking, and they aren’t combined with anything. If we ever wanted to use them for something else, we would ask for your consent first.
We think this is the right reading of the law. It is the law and the Information Commission’s guidance on “storage and access technologies” that matter, not our opinion, so if you disagree or have a concern, tell us at privacy@fallinghippo.com.
5. What other people’s services might set
Nothing on brightatoms.com loads from another company’s servers: not fonts, not scripts, not pictures. A content security policy stops the pages from loading anything from elsewhere.
Our web host, Cloudflare, may in some situations set a security cookie, usually to tell people from automated attacks. That would be strictly necessary for keeping the site safe, and wouldn’t need consent. If one is set, we will list it here.
If you follow a link from a Bright Atoms page to IUPAC, NIST, PubChem or any other site, that site’s own cookies and policies apply from then on.
6. How to remove what is kept
- The Motion setting. In your browser’s settings, clear this site’s data. The wording differs between browsers, but it is usually under Privacy, then Site settings or Cookies and site data, then brightatoms.com. Closing a private or incognito window also clears it.
7. Changes
If we add anything that stores or reads information on your device, we will update this page first, change the date at the top, and ask for your consent where the law requires it.
- 11 November 2026. First version.
8. Questions
Email privacy@fallinghippo.com. Our registered office is FALLINGHIPPO LIMITED, 71-75 Shelton Street, London, England, WC2H 9JQ, company number 17415391.