What does popularmechanics.com track?
Before any consent, popularmechanics.com loaded 3 tracking companies and set 0 advertising or analytics cookies.
That's more tracking companies than 58% of the 2,450 sites we scanned.
Scanned October 2, 2026 from Germany, loading www.popularmechanics.com once and clicking nothing. How we scan
- Tracking companies
- 3
- Tracking cookies
- 0
- Third-party hosts
- 8
- Cookies in total
- 4
Consent banner
The page loaded OneTrust, a consent management platform. Everything below was recorded before anyone answered it. 3 tracking companies still loaded while it was unanswered.
Companies contacted before consent
2 of the 5 companies it contacted before consent were advertising companies.
- Google Ads3 requestsAdvertising
securepubads.g.doubleclick.net
- Amazon Advertising2 requestsAdvertising
c.amazon-adsystem.com
- Ensighten5 requestsAnalytics
nexus.ensighten.com
Other third parties (content delivery, consent, functional, unclassified)
Cookies set before consent
| Cookie | Purpose | Set by | Lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
| hdm_cmp | Unclassified | popularmechanics.com | 12 months |
| location_data | Unclassified | popularmechanics.com | Session |
| location_data | Unclassified | www.popularmechanics.com | Session |
| OptanonConsent | Functional | popularmechanics.com | 6 months |
Understanding this page
- How to see which cookies and trackers a website loads
A hands-on walkthrough for checking what a site sets before you've clicked anything, using Chrome and Firefox's built-in tools, plus how CookieTosser automates the same check every month.
- What counts as valid cookie consent in the EU
The rules that actually govern cookie banners — the ePrivacy Directive, the GDPR consent standard, the Planet49 ruling, the strictly-necessary exemption, and what "reject" has to offer compared with "accept.
- Consent management platforms explained
What a CMP banner is actually doing behind the scenes, how the IAB's TCF standard and Google's Consent Mode v2 fit in, and why a banner being present is no guarantee that nothing loads before you answer it.