Privacy and cookies

How sboxns.com chooses the regional analytics default, how to disable it, and what the website stores. Last updated 17 October 2026.

Summary

Google Analytics 4 uses prior opt-in in consent-first regions. In other recognised countries it is on by default, with a notice and a Turn off analytics button. Unknown countries and failed location lookups use prior opt-in: no Google script, analytics requests or analytics cookies until you enable it. Enable and Disable controls have equal prominence in the opt-in notice.

You can enable or disable analytics at any time from Cookie settings in the footer. Disabling stops measurement and removes this site's analytics cookies. A Global Privacy Control signal or Do Not Track setting keeps analytics off even if it was previously enabled.

This page covers sboxns.com only: the static website, its documentation and its install guide. It does not cover the self-hosted Network Storage server you run, the s&box game, or players.

Google Analytics 4 (regional defaults)

Operator. sboxns.com is run by sboxcool. Google Analytics 4 measures visits when enabled by the regional default or your explicit choice.

Purpose. Aggregate measurements, used to understand how the documentation and install guide are used and what to improve. They cover traffic volume, pages viewed, browser/device categories and approximate country or region. They are not used to show advertising; granular location/device collection and referral tracking are disabled.

What is sent. The page origin and path, with the fixed title sboxns.com. Query strings, hash fragments, actual page titles and referrer URLs are not sent. Your browser also sends the standard details needed to deliver any web request, including your IP address, which Google uses to derive approximate region. sboxns.com does not deliberately collect email addresses, API keys, game data or player data for analytics.

Who processes it. Google provides Analytics under its service terms. Google LLC and its affiliates, including Google Ireland Limited where applicable, may process data in the United States and other countries under the safeguards described in Google's terms.

Advertising. Advertising features, ad personalization and Google Signals are disabled for sboxns.com's analytics property.

Retention. The GA4 property is configured to retain event-level and user-level data for 2 months, with reset on new activity disabled. These controls do not govern most standard aggregated reports. Analytics cookies have a separate lifetime described below.

Cookies. When analytics is enabled, GA4 sets first-party cookies on sboxns.com named _ga and _ga_<stream>. They contain generated browser identifiers and last up to 2 years unless removed or restricted by your browser. Disabling analytics removes them.

How the regional default is selected

Before using a regional default we request https://sboxcool.com/cdn-cgi/trace, an existing endpoint on the operator's Cloudflare-proxied site. The request excludes credentials and the referring page URL. Cloudflare sees your IP address and ordinary connection details to estimate your country. The script uses only the two-letter country code, discards the remaining response, and does not save the country or trace. It does not request precise browser location. No Cloudflare Worker is used.

The consent-first policy covers the EEA, UK and Switzerland, associated European territories, and these additional regions conservatively: Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, Vatican City, Brazil, South Korea, Türkiye, South Africa, Thailand, China, Japan, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Israel, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Mexico, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Belarus. Other recognised countries use default-on analytics with opt-out.

IP-based country detection can be affected by VPNs and proxies. An unavailable, invalid or unrecognised country response uses prior opt-in. This is a conservative website policy, not a certification that all countries' legal requirements are identical or permanently settled. Country defaults never override an explicit off choice.

Your choice

Enable or disable. Consent-first and unknown regions do not load Google Analytics before you explicitly enable it. Other regions show that analytics is on by default and offer Turn off analytics; Got it dismisses that notice, rather than recording affirmative consent.

Where the choice is kept. sboxns-analytics-consent in browser local storage records your preference. An enabling choice lasts 180 days; an explicit off choice has no expiry and remains until you change it or clear site storage. A default-on acknowledgement is distinguished from affirmative consent: it cannot turn analytics on if you later visit from a consent-first region. The record itself stays on your device.

Changing it. Open Cookie settings in the footer on any page to enable or disable analytics.

Disabling. Turning analytics off sets Google's opt-out flag, removes the analytics cookies and reloads the page if Google code was already running, to remove its listeners. Other cookies, including unrelated sign-in cookies, are not removed. Saved off choices also stop analytics in other open tabs.

Storage unavailable. If the browser cannot read or write the preference, analytics stays off. If an off choice cannot be saved, the notice states that it applies to the current page.

On your device

Essential preferences work without analytics consent. Analytics cookies exist only when analytics is enabled under the regional policy or your choice.

Theme preference. sboxns-theme remembers whether you chose dark or light. It is not analytics and is not sent anywhere.

Analytics preference. sboxns-analytics-consent records the choice described above. A temporary sboxns-analytics-consent-check key checks that the browser can persist an off choice and is removed immediately.

Analytics cookies. _ga and _ga_<stream> are removed when you disable analytics.

Hosting requests

The static pages of sboxns.com are served by GitHub Pages. To deliver a page, GitHub receives ordinary web request details, such as your IP address, the file requested and your browser's user agent. This is hosting, not analytics, and it happens whether or not you accept. GitHub's handling is described in the GitHub privacy statement.

The install page loads public name statistics from sboxcool.com. That request is not analytics and is not gated by your choice. sboxcool receives ordinary request details, such as your IP address and user agent. See the sboxcool privacy policy for how it handles them.

Links to GitHub, sboxcool.com, the live demo at demo.sboxns.com and other sites lead to separate services with their own policies. This page does not cover them.

Not collected

sboxns.com does not deliberately collect email addresses, API keys, game data, player data or anything from your self-hosted server for Google Analytics. Do not put personal information or credentials into website URL paths: the page path is reported when analytics is enabled. Query strings and fragments are excluded. Analytics covers this website only.

Your self-hosted server, the s&box game that uses it and the players of that game are not covered by this page. Each game's server operator is responsible for its own player data. For questions about a hosted name, see Data boundaries on the install page.

Contact and more information

For questions or requests about this site, contact sboxcool through sboxcool support. The sboxcool privacy policy covers hosted names and other sboxcool services.

Google's own information: the Google privacy policy, how Google uses cookies, Google Analytics privacy information and the Google Analytics terms.

This page describes how sboxns.com is set up. It is not legal advice and is not a certification of compliance with any law.