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Self-Destructing Cookies – add-on for Firefox

addons.mozilla.org

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Re: Self-Destructing Cookies – add-on for Firefox

#41

Post by lesslaw »

ove wrote: post #30

I'm the author of that add-on. Maybe I can add to the discussion by outlining my motivation for writing SDC. I'm currently in the process of compiling the results of an automated crawl of thousands of popular sites that I did last month. I think that every www user should be aware of this: - The privacy model of browsers relies on the same-origin policy. The same origin policy is in practice routinely circumvented by…

Thanks for this. I do more and more mobile browsing nowdays and this works on my phone too, unlike Ghostery & noScript so thank you.

Re: Self-Destructing Cookies – add-on for Firefox

#42

Post by Wicher »

axelfreeman wrote: post #39
Wicher wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moreover, using Cookie Monster you can allow cookies for second level domain names. Meaning that if you navigate to mozilla.org, cookies for www.mozilla.org will be accepted — but cookies for adnetwork.com will not. This feature makes many sites work which otherwise break with third party cookies disabled, while still discarding the majority of third party cookies.

Firefox has this feature now build in. Goto privacy -> custom settings -> cookies from thierdparty and change to sites i have visited.

I don't think that that option accomplishes the same, or is even similar.

What about sites that you never visit (= type in address bar / follow links to) directly, but which are on some subdomain of the visited site nonetheless? Cookiemonster will accept the cookie. Firefox, with your config, will not.

What about sites that you do visit (eg facebook.com) but don't want to accept/send third party cookies for? Firefox, with your config, will. Cookiemonster won't.

Re: Self-Destructing Cookies – add-on for Firefox

#44

Post by Amadou »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #36
ove wrote: post #30

I'm the author of that add-on. Maybe I can add to the discussion by outlining my motivation for writing SDC. I'm currently in the process of compiling the results of an automated crawl of thousands of popular sites that I did last month. I think that every www user should be aware of this: - The privacy model of browsers relies on the same-origin policy. The same origin policy is in practice routinely circumvented by…

Tracking by abusing the cache is a serious problem. I've written about it before: https://grepular.com/Preventing_Web_Tracking_via_the_Browser... I simply turned off disk and memory caching in Firefox (details in link above) and have been running this way for nearly two years. Browsing the web with cache is not as efficient, but with my ~8Mbit Internet connection, practically, I don't really notice any difference. To…

I am thinking that the RequestPolicy add-on would practically eliminate cache-based tracking by simply blocking all requests to unnecessary 3rd party sites. I would appreciate hearing your analysis of it.

https://www.requestpolicy.com/

Re: Self-Destructing Cookies – add-on for Firefox

#46

Post by BoppreH »

dotmanish wrote: post #7

Please make this non-shocking for non-geeks. Upon the first run, without warning, I see this: " If you read this, all of your cookies that are not currently in use just self-destructed. Don't panic. You can undo this if you prefer to keep them for now. " . . . " Undeletes happen in batches. If you had a lot of cookies, you might need to restore more batches. Click SDC's icon again. Select Undelete (more) cookies from…

Funny you mention it as basic usability. The story on the home page with most points is about usability and they explicitly recommend using undos instead of confirmations: http://goodui.org/#8

Re: Self-Destructing Cookies – add-on for Firefox

#47

Post by alok-g »

BoppreH wrote: post #46
dotmanish wrote: post #7

Please make this non-shocking for non-geeks. Upon the first run, without warning, I see this: " If you read this, all of your cookies that are not currently in use just self-destructed. Don't panic. You can undo this if you prefer to keep them for now. " . . . " Undeletes happen in batches. If you had a lot of cookies, you might need to restore more batches. Click SDC's icon again. Select Undelete (more) cookies from…

Funny you mention it as basic usability. The story on the home page with most points is about usability and they explicitly recommend using undos instead of confirmations: http://goodui.org/#8

Undo instead of confirmation would be a better approach when most users would want to take the action. Here is it not established yet that the default to clear all the cookies is the acceptable choice for most users.

Re: Self-Destructing Cookies – add-on for Firefox

#49

Post by brownbat »

I'm really stunned by the amount of development on the tracking side.

Cookies, flash cookies, evercookies, local storage, favicons, browser fingerprinting... I'm sure there are several others.

It's stunning to me because the amount of redundant ammunition available for trackers seems way out of proportion to how many people actually know anything about this.

Re: Self-Destructing Cookies – add-on for Firefox

#50

Post by cypherpunks01 »

thomas-st wrote: post #4
simpleglider wrote: post #2

Are there any comparable plugins for Chrome or Safari?

Chrome: I use Vanilla Cookie Manager. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vanilla-cookie-man... Would be interested in something comparable for Safari. Anyone?

Vanilla Cookie Manager is amazing - I'd highly recommend it.
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