Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Removes Cookie Control from Chrome

lauren.vortex.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 70 posts

Re: Google Removes Cookie Control from Chrome

#11

Post by aj »

masklinn wrote: post #7
aj wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that is a feature that Google has hardcoded into Chrome. You CANNOT disable auto-updates or even make it so that you are asked for confirmation.

Of course you can (disclaimer edition note: but it's not necessarily for the faint of heart, and isn't officially supported. On their updater and update policy, Google manages to be worse than Apple on Windows, which is already pretty fucking bad). 1. On Windows and OSX (at least), the actual updating is performed by a single service running in the background for all Google applications (the Google Updater). This ser…

Ugh, of course, there are work-arounds. But if you re-read my comment, I said it is hardcoded in Chrome. I was talking about Chrome.

Another point: Your method will disable all google updates (google toolbar, google talk etc) which is a good side effect imo but not necessarily desirable by all.

Re: Google Removes Cookie Control from Chrome

#12

Post by modeless »

stretchwithme wrote: post #3

The author says google is pushing out new versions of the browser automatically now. I was pretty sure I didn't enable the automatic updating feature but when I checked "About Chrome", I was informed that the browser had been updated. Seems to be no way to disable this either. Am I missing something?

This is how Chrome has worked since forever, and it's a good thing. Asking the user for confirmation for security updates leads directly to users running known-insecure versions of software. If you don't want auto-updates, use Chromium.

Re: Google Removes Cookie Control from Chrome

#13

Post by jan_g »

wazoox wrote: post #5
aj wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that is a feature that Google has hardcoded into Chrome. You CANNOT disable auto-updates or even make it so that you are asked for confirmation.

Fortunately, the auto-update feature doesn't work on my Linux machines.

Same here. Everything is managed via Synaptic update manager and Chrome gets updated only after I hit the button 'Install updates'.

Re: Google Removes Cookie Control from Chrome

#14

Post by thezilch »

ck2 wrote: post #10
thezilch wrote: post #8

Title here and there are a bit misleading. My hope is Lauren has simply missed the cookie icon, in his location bar. Running 7.0.536.2 (dev), in the cookie settings, I can set Chrome to "Block sites from setting any data." Now, upon browsing to a site attempting to set, in the URL (location) bar is a cookie with an "X" overlaid -- similar in style to the padlock with an "X" when an HTTPS URI is using an unsigned SSL…

What about third party cookie control which is important? I barely use chrome but I know firefox has a toggle for this.

While I'm not familiar with which Firefox controls you are referencing, the following is a shot of the cookie+"X" and the impending modal for selecting 0..n cookies and site data to be allowed indefinitely or for this session alone:

http://i.imgur.com/va1xW.png

Re: Google Removes Cookie Control from Chrome

#15

Post by fauigerzigerk »

aj wrote: post #4
stretchwithme wrote: post #3

The author says google is pushing out new versions of the browser automatically now. I was pretty sure I didn't enable the automatic updating feature but when I checked "About Chrome", I was informed that the browser had been updated. Seems to be no way to disable this either. Am I missing something?

Yes, that is a feature that Google has hardcoded into Chrome. You CANNOT disable auto-updates or even make it so that you are asked for confirmation.

That's a very bad "feature". On some connections I pay for every MB downloaded.

Re: Google Removes Cookie Control from Chrome

#16

Post by beej71 »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #15
aj wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that is a feature that Google has hardcoded into Chrome. You CANNOT disable auto-updates or even make it so that you are asked for confirmation.

That's a very bad "feature". On some connections I pay for every MB downloaded.

I agree it's questionable from a money standpoint, but not updating your browser is questionable from a self-preservation standpoint, as well.

(But I also agree that should be your decision to make.)

The compression Chrome uses on the diffs is pretty hardcore:

http://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/software...

So you can at least be reasonably certain that your browsing bandwidth dwarfs the Chrome updates, FWIW.

Re: Google Removes Cookie Control from Chrome

#17

Post by fauigerzigerk »

beej71 wrote: post #16
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very bad "feature". On some connections I pay for every MB downloaded.

I agree it's questionable from a money standpoint, but not updating your browser is questionable from a self-preservation standpoint, as well. (But I also agree that should be your decision to make.) The compression Chrome uses on the diffs is pretty hardcore: http://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/software... So you can at least be reasonably certain that your browsing bandwidth dwarfs the Chrome update…

I don't understand why they're taking that decision away from me. They could just enable auto update by default so most users would always be up-to-date unless they have a reason for disabling it. There are some good reasons other than money as well, such as privacy and security. I don't want my computer updated in any shape or form when I'm on an airport or in an authoritarian country for instance.

I don't know whether a Chrome update is dwarfed by regular browsing. The link you posted shows the size of one particular diff update they did. That's a completely worthless measure. The worst case, no doubt, is that everything has to be replaced and that would be 10MB.

Re: Google Removes Cookie Control from Chrome

#18

Post by mtigas »

tldr: Author is referring to the ability to enable the "ask me every time a site wants to set a cookie" prompt (a la Firefox). Looks like this has been disabled in the latest Chrome nightly. FUD, etc.

However: In general, cookie controls are still entirely there, so I'm positive that specific feature is what they're referring to. I use an extensive cookie domain blocklist and that's all there and functional. (I've never used said "ask me every time" feature in Chrome, but I went through a phase of using that on Firefox.)

-----

UPDATE:

Found the relevant checkin: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=51375

Looks like the previous behavior can be re-enabled via the "--enable-cookie-prompt" command line argument.

Perhaps support for re-enabling that by default should go in that bug (or a new one that references it)?

Re: Google Removes Cookie Control from Chrome

#19

Post by gaius »

modeless wrote: post #12
stretchwithme wrote: post #3

The author says google is pushing out new versions of the browser automatically now. I was pretty sure I didn't enable the automatic updating feature but when I checked "About Chrome", I was informed that the browser had been updated. Seems to be no way to disable this either. Am I missing something?

This is how Chrome has worked since forever, and it's a good thing. Asking the user for confirmation for security updates leads directly to users running known-insecure versions of software. If you don't want auto-updates, use Chromium.

Imagine the howls if Microsoft had done this...

Re: Google Removes Cookie Control from Chrome

#20

Post by ck2 »

thezilch wrote: post #14
ck2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about third party cookie control which is important? I barely use chrome but I know firefox has a toggle for this.

While I'm not familiar with which Firefox controls you are referencing, the following is a shot of the cookie+"X" and the impending modal for selecting 0..n cookies and site data to be allowed indefinitely or for this session alone: http://i.imgur.com/va1xW.png

Firefox (3.6.11) default without plugin modification:

http://i.imgur.com/TUgZU.png

"accept third-party cookies" (which no web developer should ever rely on)

and also available via an extension (but should be built in)

http://i.imgur.com/dZxFG.png

(hmm, why is imgur setting a 9-month long tracking cookie)

Post reply on HN