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Google Chrome to remove detailed cookie and site data controls

lapcatsoftware.com

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Re: Google Chrome to remove detailed cookie and site data controls

#71

Post by BoorishBears »

samizdis wrote: post #39
tehwebguy wrote: post #3

> By the way, before anyone runs off and yells "Switch to Safari" or something like that, keep in mind that Safari is actually in a worse state and doesn't have detailed cookie and site information at all. It does, but it's split between two places. You can see a list of all sites that have stored data in Preferences > Privacy > Manage Website Data... (no option to view here, just delete). You can also navigate to th…

> You can also navigate to the site in the browser and then view the detailed data The author addresses this point (or has now addressed it) in the addendum to point out an "observer effect" shortcoming: This information can be seen with the web inspector in both Chrome and Safari. Yes, but the crucial difference is that you have to navigate to an individual site in a browser window in order to see the site data in t…

Not that I think this has actually been applied by anyone in the wild, but it'd be fun to make a site that take advantage of this

You can detect developer tools being open in Chrome pretty reliably, so detect dev tools have been open then "clean up your act" before there's a chance to view anything of note

Re: Google Chrome to remove detailed cookie and site data controls

#72

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

bigwavedave wrote: post #38
ratata wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just fyi, you can delete individual cookies in the developer tools.

> Just fyi, you can delete individual cookies in the developer tools. While I very much agree with the point you're making, I can count on one hand (with fingers to spare) the number of family members I have who know what the developer tools even are, and that's because I showed them when troubleshooting an issue they were having. They aren't going to learn or remember how to access the dev tools to manage cookies, b…

If they're a non-developer, the ability to clear all of the cookies (or data) for a given site should be adequate to cover their needs (and if they're a developer, obviously they'll just use Developer Tools > Application for individual cookie manipulation).

If a non-developer is in a situation where they need to delete a single cookie by name but deleting _all_ of that site's cookies would be ruinous for some reason, then something's horribly wrong.

Re: Google Chrome to remove detailed cookie and site data controls

#73

Post by codezero »

samizdis wrote: post #39
tehwebguy wrote: post #3

> By the way, before anyone runs off and yells "Switch to Safari" or something like that, keep in mind that Safari is actually in a worse state and doesn't have detailed cookie and site information at all. It does, but it's split between two places. You can see a list of all sites that have stored data in Preferences > Privacy > Manage Website Data... (no option to view here, just delete). You can also navigate to th…

> You can also navigate to the site in the browser and then view the detailed data The author addresses this point (or has now addressed it) in the addendum to point out an "observer effect" shortcoming: This information can be seen with the web inspector in both Chrome and Safari. Yes, but the crucial difference is that you have to navigate to an individual site in a browser window in order to see the site data in t…

Not trying to defend anyone here, but I wonder if there's a non-nefarious reason for this.

Specifically, there have been a lot of changes to cookies lately because malicious actors (malware/adware) figured out how to access the cookie store and infer/determine cookie information from other sites.

I suspect that maybe this cookie store is kept in a more secure part of the application and only the cookies relevant to the site you visit get pulled out of it. It may even be a risk to have the information for all domains even loaded into memory for the application.

With all that said, there should be some way to manage/introspect that cookie store from outside of the browser imho.

Re: Google Chrome to remove detailed cookie and site data controls

#75

Post by codezero »

BoorishBears wrote: post #71
samizdis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can also navigate to the site in the browser and then view the detailed data The author addresses this point (or has now addressed it) in the addendum to point out an "observer effect" shortcoming: This information can be seen with the web inspector in both Chrome and Safari. Yes, but the crucial difference is that you have to navigate to an individual site in a browser window in order to see the site data in t…

Not that I think this has actually been applied by anyone in the wild, but it'd be fun to make a site that take advantage of this You can detect developer tools being open in Chrome pretty reliably, so detect dev tools have been open then "clean up your act" before there's a chance to view anything of note

Could you see the original cookie by inspecting the headers of the network request? This would presumably be the value before the page loads and gives access to document.cookie or a change triggered by a server-side header.

Re: Google Chrome to remove detailed cookie and site data controls

#76

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

yellow_lead wrote: post #32
melbourne_mat wrote: post #15

I'm privacy conscious but would not consider looking at such detailed information. For me it's delete all site state on exit. Do people actually look at this stuff?

I've looked at it before - to delete a specific cookie, or see what a website has stored. Deleting specific cookies can sometimes fix broken websites.

What's the intersection of "users who want to delete a specific cookie" and "users who cannot open Developer Tools"? For the average user, deleting all of a site's cookies seems like all the granularity you need (and will be a more effective troubleshooting tactic anyway).

Re: Google Chrome to remove detailed cookie and site data controls

#77

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

sixothree wrote: post #53
melbourne_mat wrote: post #15

I'm privacy conscious but would not consider looking at such detailed information. For me it's delete all site state on exit. Do people actually look at this stuff?

Absolutely. I delete specific cookies regularly.

Through this UI? What's wrong with using Developer Tools for this?

Re: Google Chrome to remove detailed cookie and site data controls

#78

Post by chrononaut »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #63

As of today, my main workstation is an "early 2008" iMac, at El Capitan and Chrome maxed out at 83.x... In addition to Chrome, I'm using six other browsers which work well with HN, my own sites, fb, gmail, ... I think in today's Web we've achieved an incredible level of compatibility, interoperability, and accessibility. Are there many sites which don't work across 25 years or 15 years or even 5 years worth of client…

Are you not worried about security vulnerabilities?

Re: Google Chrome to remove detailed cookie and site data controls

#79

Post by dangrossman »

james-skemp wrote: post #26
melbourne_mat wrote: post #15

I'm privacy conscious but would not consider looking at such detailed information. For me it's delete all site state on exit. Do people actually look at this stuff?

Developer bias, but being able to delete individual cookies is invaluable. Non-developer hat: PlayStation Network store also had a bug where you'd be logged in, but unable to buy anything. Instead of deleting all data you could delete one cookie and it would temporarily resolve the issue.

I've run into that bug (I think) on lots of sites, including two of my credit card issuers. They set so many cookies, and new ones on every visit, with long expirations, until the cookie header is so large that either the browser or server is cutting it off and you can't pick up the cookies to log in any more. I go wipe out some cookies to fix that too.

Re: Google Chrome to remove detailed cookie and site data controls

#80

Post by firebaze »

jacquesm wrote: post #64

They are really on a roll there, how many user hostile moves is that in the last 30 days? I think I lost count at 4. And all in the name of 'helping our users to improve their experience'. Since when is removing features that users depend on a positive? But with the competition as good as dead they can do whatever they want: the bulk of the audience is now captive and has lost either the willpower or the means to att…

Just sell your google stock in the next few months. I wonder why Microsoft doesn't sue Google, they're repeating the Internet Explorer story almost step-by-step.
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