How Long Do Cam Sites Keep Cookies? Six Platforms Compared

All six cam sites reviewed set or document persistent cookies that can stay on your device for weeks to years. CamsNerd read the published cookie policies and captured HTTP response headers for Chaturbate, Stripchat, LiveJasmin, CAM4, MyFreeCams, and BongaCams. The longest single cookie we observed was roughly 2.7 years. One platform’s privacy policy claims it uses only session cookies. What we observed in practice was different.

If you’re on a shared device and want to know what you’re dealing with: clearing your browser cookies removes those identifiers, but it does not clear your browsing history, local storage, or browser fingerprint. That distinction matters and we come back to it at the end.

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What a cookie actually is

A cookie is a small piece of text your browser saves locally when a site instructs it to. Session cookies disappear when you close the browser. Persistent cookies carry an expiration date and remain on your device until that date passes or you delete them. They can recognize your browser the next time you visit the same site and link that visit to previous ones.

Cookies are browser-specific and device-specific. A cookie set on your laptop does not transfer to your phone, and a cookie from one site cannot be read by a different site. What they can do is build a visit history on a single browser across days, weeks, or years, depending on how long the platform sets them to last.

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Platform findings

Chaturbate

Chaturbate’s privacy policy describes cookies alongside web beacons, tracking pixels, and device identifiers, and groups them into four categories: required service, browsing experience, analytics and popularity, and advertising.

CamsNerd observed the following in Chaturbate’s unauthenticated homepage response (2026-08-01):

• csrftoken: Max-Age 31,449,600 seconds (approximately 1 year)
• sbr: Max-Age 86,313,600 seconds (approximately 2.7 years)
• AG_Key: Max-Age 1,200 seconds (approximately 20 minutes, short-lived)
• __cf_bm: Cloudflare bot-management, approximately 30 minutes

The sbr cookie at 2.7 years is the longest we observed across all six platforms. Named third-party integrations in the policy include Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Hotjar, New Relic, and Fingerprint.

Stripchat

Stripchat’s cookie policy, effective August 1, 2026, states the site uses both session cookies and persistent cookies. It names cookies across four functional groups: essential (guestID, sessionId), performance (firstVisit, ABTest_playerOnThumbHover_key), functionality (guestSubscriptions, guestFavoritesIds), and targeting (Google Analytics, Amplitude). The policy also notes that Hotjar records heatmaps and session activity but does not capture submitted form contents.

CamsNerd’s unauthenticated request to Stripchat’s homepage returned only Cloudflare infrastructure cookies (__cf_bm, _cfuvid). Stripchat’s own first-party persistent cookies were not present in those unauthenticated headers, which is consistent with platforms that defer non-essential cookies until a user interacts with a consent mechanism. Individual expiration durations for Stripchat’s documented first-party cookies are not specified in its published policy.

LiveJasmin

LiveJasmin publishes the most detailed cookie documentation of the six platforms we checked. Its cookie policy (accessed 2026-08-01) lists named cookies with exact durations:

• _ga (Google Analytics): 1 year
• gravity_cookie: 30 days
• over18Approved: 1 year
• consent: 1 year
• autologin: 30 days
• site_lang: 30 days
• Session cookies expire on browser close

CamsNerd observed persistent cookies in LiveJasmin’s unauthenticated homepage response that matched this disclosure: unique_visitor_id, tppId, and category each expired approximately 1 year out. Two consent-state cookies (is_personalized_content_allowed and is_sensitive_data_collection_allowed) had shorter windows of approximately 1 month. Named third-party integrations include Google Tag Manager, Hotjar, Alexa, and Emarsys.

CAM4

CAM4’s cookie consent modal states the site uses cookies for online experience, statistical analysis, and marketing. The full cookie policy table sits behind the modal interaction and was not accessible from our passive observation.

CamsNerd observed the following in CAM4’s unauthenticated homepage response:

• cam4_SESSION_ID: Max-Age 2,592,000 seconds (30 days)
• cam4_user_language: language preference cookie
• JSESSIONID: session cookie (no expiry attribute)
• INGRESSCOOKIE: routing cookie (no expiry attribute)

Named third-party integrations identified from the policy include Google Tag Manager and Matomo.

MyFreeCams

MyFreeCams’ privacy policy has been in effect since September 21, 2006. It states: “We use only session ID cookies to identify you during the session on our web pages. These session ID cookies are not linked to personally identifiable information… we do not use cookies to store any information that could be used to identify you or contact you after you leave MFC.”

CamsNerd observed a direct contradiction. MyFreeCams’ homepage HTTP response (2026-08-01) included two persistent cookies: pref_cli and baf, each with Max-Age 2,592,000 (30 days). Those are not session cookies.

The most straightforward explanation is that the 2006 policy has not been revised to reflect current technical practice. We are not characterizing intent. The discrepancy between the documented policy and the observed behavior is a fact of the record. MyFreeCams does not publish a separate cookie policy and does not document any third-party cookie integrations.

BongaCams

BongaCams’ cookie policy was revised as of July 24, 2026. It lists extensive first-party cookies including bonga20120608, ts_type2, fv, uh, sg, and warning18, alongside Cloudflare and Google Analytics integrations. The policy documents Google Analytics cookies (ga, _ga*) at their standard durations, which run up to approximately 2 years for some GA4 measurement identifiers.

CamsNerd’s unauthenticated request to BongaCams’ homepage was blocked by a Cloudflare challenge. The only Set-Cookie header returned was Cloudflare’s __cf_bm. We were unable to observe BongaCams’ first-party persistent cookies directly. The comparison table entry for BongaCams’ first-party cookie durations comes from its published policy, not from a live observation.

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Comparison at a glance

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What clearing cookies does, and doesn’t do

Clearing your cookies removes the cookie identifiers a site stored in your browser. If Chaturbate set a 2.7-year persistent cookie, clearing your cookies deletes it. The site won’t recognize your browser as returning on your next visit.

That is not the same as clearing all evidence of your visit. Several other storage mechanisms are unaffected:

Browsing history is logged separately by your browser. Clear it independently through your browser’s history settings.

localStorage and IndexedDB are browser storage APIs that persist independently of cookies. Sites can and do use them for preference and session data. “Clear cookies” actions may or may not touch these, depending on your browser and the settings you choose.

Service workers can cache content after a page visit and are not removed by standard cookie clearing.

Browser fingerprinting reconstructs an identifier from browser and device characteristics such as screen resolution, installed fonts, and plugin configuration. It requires no local storage at all and is unaffected by deleting cookies.

Account records stored on the platform’s servers are not local. Clearing your cookies has no effect on anything the platform already recorded against your account.

Incognito or private browsing discards cookies when you close the window, which limits the persistence problem from the other direction. The tradeoffs are worth a separate look, covered in our article on incognito mode, VPNs, and ad blockers on cam sites.

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Method and limitations

CamsNerd made unauthenticated HTTP requests to each platform’s homepage on 2026-08-01 and recorded Set-Cookie response headers. Opaque session values are not reproduced. Cookie names are reported as observed. No accounts were created, no logins occurred, no browser automation was used, and no broadcaster content was accessed or retained.

Chaturbate, LiveJasmin, CAM4, and MyFreeCams observations came from direct response headers. Stripchat and BongaCams returned infrastructure cookies only (Cloudflare challenge or pre-consent state); first-party cookie data for those platforms comes from their published policies. CAM4’s full cookie policy table sat behind a consent modal and was not fully extractable.

Cookie behavior can vary by geographic region (GDPR consent flows, CCPA opt-out), by whether a consent mechanism has been interacted with, and by platform-side updates. All observations are point-in-time snapshots from a single unauthenticated request per platform.

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Sources and methodology