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Things not available when someone blocks all cookies

blog.tomayac.com

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Re: Things not available when someone blocks all cookies

#61

Post by Comevius »

mcv wrote: post #41

I often think that instead of completely blocking cookies, it would be better to accept them and then throw them away. Same with localStorage. Just store it temporarily.

This is how I use Firefox, things only stored for the session, for the given container. Containers are better than first-party isolation, because many sites expect to share data with third-parties.

It is also better to fake API responses than to block access to them. In Firefox the privacy.resistFingerprinting option takes care of this. It was originally developed for the Tor Browser.

Re: Things not available when someone blocks all cookies

#62

Post by GuB-42 »

ape4 wrote: post #52
antiframe wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could call it "disable cookies and other persistent storage (more information)" with more information providing their reasoning why they are bundled in plain English. There is no reason the setting has to have a two word name with no description.

Just like Windows Control Panel has "Printers and Devices" - because I guess people don't think of printers as devices?

I guess that well behaved devices took offense of being put in the same category as printers. And I understand them.

Re: Things not available when someone blocks all cookies

#63

Post by bmismyname »

cbsks wrote: post #51
mcv wrote: post #41

I often think that instead of completely blocking cookies, it would be better to accept them and then throw them away. Same with localStorage. Just store it temporarily.

I’ve been using Cookie AutoDelete for that purpose for the last few years. It works flawlessly for me and brings me comfort in knowing that I am only being tracked online by my browser fingerprint and IP. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-autode...

Same, I absolutely love this extension. You can whitelist the websites you use frequently, and for everything else it's like a groundhog day every day.

The cookie banners can be super annoying sometimes, but they are easily removed with uBlock Origin. I also frequently have to solve captchas, but it's not so bad. For example, every time I visit amazon.com to order toilet paper or whatever, it thinks I'm a bot, but at least amazon's captchas are less annoying than some of the others.

Re: Things not available when someone blocks all cookies

#64

Post by marcosdumay »

mcv wrote: post #41

I often think that instead of completely blocking cookies, it would be better to accept them and then throw them away. Same with localStorage. Just store it temporarily.

Well, I've reacted to the article with an "of course, the Google's browser breaks everything if you try to block tracking".

There is absolutely no reason for letting the javascript know that you've blocked some functionality. It just adds new tracking.

Anyway, the sensible thing to do is to store the values for the lifetime of the page. Simply throwing them away can be an option, but it's a bad default. Non ad based browsers do get it.

Re: Things not available when someone blocks all cookies

#66

Post by marcosdumay »

gameshot911 wrote: post #60

Why is the website failing with unhandled errors, but working when they are try/catch'd? Either way the errors are being thrown, and the functionality isn't available. Is the browser not able to handle the situation itself more gracefully?

Because the site doesn't need the functionality to work, but an exception terminates the javascript execution of things that the site does need.

Re: Things not available when someone blocks all cookies

#67

Post by reset-password »

cbsks wrote: post #51
mcv wrote: post #41

I often think that instead of completely blocking cookies, it would be better to accept them and then throw them away. Same with localStorage. Just store it temporarily.

I’ve been using Cookie AutoDelete for that purpose for the last few years. It works flawlessly for me and brings me comfort in knowing that I am only being tracked online by my browser fingerprint and IP. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-autode...

Came here to mention this. This is is probably the most useful extension for preserving privacy while also not breaking things. Sites can store all the cookies they want now, but a few minutes after the tab goes away it's like we never met. Very nice.

Re: Things not available when someone blocks all cookies

#68

Post by sebazzz »

Weird to throw an exception when localStorage is not available. It is much more logical to have it undefined or null. Code working with localStorage is more likely to check whether it is available (“not falsey”) rather than trying to use it and fall back if it throws.

Re: Things not available when someone blocks all cookies

#69

Post by gameshot911 »

marcosdumay wrote: post #66
gameshot911 wrote: post #60

Why is the website failing with unhandled errors, but working when they are try/catch'd? Either way the errors are being thrown, and the functionality isn't available. Is the browser not able to handle the situation itself more gracefully?

Because the site doesn't need the functionality to work, but an exception terminates the javascript execution of things that the site does need.

Thx!
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