This page has no date built into it. A birthday is a personal fixture, so you set the date yourself and the countdown runs to it — the target is kept in the browser on the device you set it on, not in an account, and nothing is sent anywhere.
The dates people track here vary enormously. A child counting to their own birthday will check it daily for weeks; a parent is usually working backwards from it, towards a venue, a cake, invitations and the deliveries that have to arrive in time. Milestones get watched most closely of all — eighteenth and twenty-first birthdays, the round decades, and the hundredth, which in the United Kingdom still brings a congratulatory message from the monarch if someone applies for one on your behalf.
Because the target is a fixed calendar date, the countdown runs straight through whatever falls in between. The clocks going forward in March and back in October, a leap day in February, the turn of the year itself — none of it disturbs the arithmetic. The one date worth thinking about is 29 February, which exists only every fourth year, so a birthday on it is marked on 28 February or 1 March in the years between.
Whatever date you enter, the figure shown is exact to the second rather than rounded to whole days, which becomes noticeably more interesting the closer it gets.
Common questions
Does the site decide the date?
No. You set it yourself, and it is kept in your browser on the device you entered it on.
What about a birthday on 29 February?
The date only exists in leap years, so it is usually marked on 28 February or 1 March in between — the countdown follows whichever you set.
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