What is the _cb cookie?
Chartbeat's visitor-identifier cookie, used to recognize a returning visitor across pages for its real-time audience analytics.
Our October 2026 scan found it on 42 sites (2% of the 2,450 we scanned), set before any consent.
- Purpose
- Analytics
- Belongs to
- Chartbeat
- Set as
- First-party (under the site's own domain)
- Typical lifetime
- 13 months
Sites that set _cb before consent
The highest-ranked 30 of 42 sites.
- bbc.com4 tracking companies
- ft.com4 tracking companies
- uol.com.br17 tracking companies
- independent.co.uk10 tracking companies
- terra.com.br23 tracking companies
- abc.net.au4 tracking companies
- protothema.gr6 tracking companies
- aljazeera.com5 tracking companies
- jagran.com5 tracking companies
- aajtak.in7 tracking companies
Show 20 more sites
- tupi.fm7 tracking companies
- euronews.com12 tracking companies
- fastcompany.com17 tracking companies
- politico.com31 tracking companies
- inc.com18 tracking companies
- abcnews.com11 tracking companies
- rtve.es5 tracking companies
- hindustantimes.com36 tracking companies
- asahi.com41 tracking companies
- ctvnews.ca38 tracking companies
- ynet.co.il23 tracking companies
- politico.eu5 tracking companies
- chosun.com5 tracking companies
- aljazeera.net6 tracking companies
- salon.com6 tracking companies
- voanews.com9 tracking companies
- yomiuri.co.jp20 tracking companies
- premierleague.com7 tracking companies
- jpost.com15 tracking companies
- news18.com7 tracking companies
Related cookies
Other cookies from Chartbeat.
- _cb_svref42 sites
- _chartbeat*42 sites
How to stop it
Declining non-essential cookies in a site's consent banner should stop _cb being set on later visits. Blocking third-party cookies in your browser settings stops the third-party kind everywhere, and clearing cookies for a site removes any it already set.
Description written by CookieTosser, for a cookie the Open Cookie Database doesn't cover.
Understanding this page
- How cookie lifetimes work, and why a 13-month _ga matters
What a cookie's "expires" field actually controls, why Google Analytics ships a 2-year default that many sites cut down to 13 months, and how Safari's 7-day cap on script-set cookies changes the picture.
- First-party vs third-party cookies (and why "first-party" still tracks you)
What the distinction actually means technically, why browsers only block one of the two, and how CNAME cloaking, server-side tagging and cookies like _ga let sites keep tracking under their own domain.
- How to block or limit trackers
Browser privacy settings, content blockers, Global Privacy Control and clearing cookies compared honestly — what each one actually stops, what it doesn't, and what it costs you in return.