Live data from Hacker News

Google Chrome to remove detailed cookie and site data controls

lapcatsoftware.com

211–220 of 372 posts

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

#211
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a self fulfilling prophecy. Make a useful feature difficult to discover, then remove it when few people discover it. The (not insignificant) current barrier for normal users to selectively remove cookies will be made even higher if you ask them to use dev tools. One could imagine a browser vendor who made this workflow easy because they thought it was in the users' best interest. Obviously, that browser vendor i…

>Make a useful feature difficult to discover, then remove it when few people discover it. How many people do you really think would ever need this feature in day to day use, even if it were extremely easy to find? The number is probably vanishingly small.

Millions. Big world out there

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

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. All the functionality is already built into Chrome right here: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/devtools/storage/cookies/ Contrary to the headline, Chrome isn't removing the ability to do anything -- they're just removing it from the preferences interface, where I'm not sure it really ever made sense to include in the first place. Truly, editing/deleting individual cookies isn't something any regular u…

> where I'm not sure it really ever made sense to include in the first place. So move it somewhere where it makes more sense. > Truly, editing/deleting individual cookies isn't something any regular user ever needs to do No true Scotsman? If the user needs to do this, they're automatically not a regular user, or what? Anyway, hard disagree.

> So move it somewhere where it makes more sense.

>> All the functionality is already built into Chrome right here: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/devtools/storage/cookies/

It can't both be redundant and be solved by moving one of the interfaces somewhere else. Either you meant to say it's not redundant and is needed but didn't list any reasons why you think this or your idea of simply moving the redundant interface elsewhere doesn't change the point made as it'd still be rudundant and not needed, just elsewhere.

> No true Scotsman? If the user needs to do this, they're automatically not a regular user, or what?

The "No true Scotsman" fallacy comes after redefining the group once a valid counterexample from the original group is defined. It's not a fallacy in itself just to claim a group has an attribute, the claim is still falsifiable and testable by bringing forth the counter case to why a non-developer needs or wants to use a separate settings UI for it. "non-devoloper" wording chosen instead of "regular user" particularly because the ability is still in the developer UI and maybe that'll make the claim about "regular users" a little more defined.

If this were disabling the ability for users to clear cookies for a single site I'd hard disagree but I'm wracking my brain to find a realistic case a non-developer user needs/wants to view and clear individual cookies instead of site based cookies or all cached objects for that specific page. It's seemingly by definition only useful when identifying and fixing bugs from reviewing the source/dev console logs and "clear the cookies for the specific site" is already seemingly rare enough for a user to be told to do by generic troubleshooting. If being told to do it by a developer or support agent the console is still there and again I think it's fair to say we are veering far from typical things that user cares to have in a settings UI vs where it is in the dev console.

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

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I have never known anyone to need to delete an individual cookie vs all for a site. Certainly I've never needed that. Only time I have (probably ever) deleted an individual cookie was for testing during development, and in those cases I already use the dev tools to do so.

You have never lived

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

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Needing to delete specific cookies does arise occasionally, and we have dev tools or the cookie viewer under the lock for that. However, needing to delete those cookies without first viewing the page due to side effects - that is a very niche use case.

Is it? I feel like most of my atrocious cookie hand fix cases end up being broken redirects where you get redirected to some new url that errors, so loading the page doesn't help to get rid of the offending cookie.

That would be an atrocious bit of engineering from the developer. But I suspect that even in that case, holding Escape as you load the page would kill the redirect.

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

#215
post #169
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By default it doesnt, and although I'd certainly advise going over all Brave's settings once, then you have the safest (as in not outdated like some other privacy forks) and privacy respecting Chrome based browser around.

They also run the only decent, independent search engine that has _its own_, _uncensored_ index. DDG was perceptibly worse than Google, but Brave Search is about on par, and the latency seems to be better as well. I maybe have to go to Google once or twice a month now instead of several times a day DDG would require. I know a bit about Google search, and frankly I'm stunned by what Brave was able to pull off here. I'…

Don't understand the downvotes, but brave search is a pretty decent product so far. Competition is always good, especially in the area of search.

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

#216
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so clear all the cookies for the gov site. Previously you could do that and now you can do that. Nothing has changed for this use case.

Settings vs dev tools does make a huge difference imo. The settings pane gives you a cleaner ui for quick changes (debatable, but I certainly feel this way). Dev tools can break your browser if you do things wrong. They are made for development and deep changes, not routine stuff. That is not "nothing has changed".

Dev tools absolutely cannot break your browser if you 'do things wrong'.

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

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Let's remain serious. It is entirely within the capability of modern computers to admit a dialogue which would let the user view their cookies without magically exposing them to websites. There is no non-nefarious reason for this.

I agree, but I suspect this was also what was believed when they originally did it and adversaries found very clever ways to find that cookie store - that part at least is true, which is why I bother mentioning it, given the complexity of browsers it is likely very daunting to redesign this kind of thing around the existing features. Anyways, I'm glad I'm not working on browsers, it seems like an ever-losing cat and mouse.

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

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. All the functionality is already built into Chrome right here: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/devtools/storage/cookies/ Contrary to the headline, Chrome isn't removing the ability to do anything -- they're just removing it from the preferences interface, where I'm not sure it really ever made sense to include in the first place. Truly, editing/deleting individual cookies isn't something any regular u…

> deleting individual cookies isn't something any regular user ever needs to do I disagree. A problem just recently with a gov site req'd you delete their cookies to resolve it (as an interim solution until they get around some year to fix the issue).

The change is for clearing individual cookies. You can still clear cookies per site.
Post reply on HN