Is there any extension that automatically accepts the minimum cookies for these prompts? I’ve noticed a lot of sites use the same type of prompt, and I presume it wouldn’t be impossible to automate a lot of it.
I think the one I use is called “I don’t care about cookies”, which as a statement isn’t strictly true, but I trust the browser and various other extensions I have installed to minimise the third party cookies that are accepted or left around anyway.
Would an extension like “Cookie AutoDelete” be more effective if configured to just remove all cookies the site set after the tab is closed? With that, it seems like you wouldn’t necessarily care about these bullshit ‘consent’ prompts if everything is purged when you are done with the site…
Keeping the cookies at bay is easy. What measures do you take against more advanced tracking techniques like canvas render fingerprints? There are many such techniques that go far beyond just cookies. Do you use straight NoScript? The internet is woefully broken without JavaScript.
Nothing more than what ublock origin provides, plus some router level ad/tracker blocking. Blocking 3rd party trackers is an easy measure I can take that doesn’t break the internet, and this includes a lot of companies known to use fingerprinting. It’s not perfect, but then nothing is.
Aside from that I don’t really want to go down the canvas blocking, noscript rabbit hole. I used to do it and found I was just spending too much time disabling noscript for sites I was never going to revisit. Places I frequent tend to have RSS so I just use that anyway.
This isn’t about cookies. The laws talk about personally identifiable information. Cookies are one way of collecting this, but they’re not the only way. With your approach, if the site uses some other mechanism (tied to IP address, for example), then it is completely legal. If you don’t permit it and the site is found to be violating the law then the information commissioner can impose huge fines.
I do the same on my laptop. On my iPhone I’ve started strictly using private browsing mode. No problems accepting all cookies when I kill the tab in 3 minutes anyways.
Wow, great illustration!
Is there any extension that automatically accepts the minimum cookies for these prompts? I’ve noticed a lot of sites use the same type of prompt, and I presume it wouldn’t be impossible to automate a lot of it.
There are several Firefox extensions that do it. I use consent-o-matic.
That’s cool – thanks for the tip!
I think the one I use is called “I don’t care about cookies”, which as a statement isn’t strictly true, but I trust the browser and various other extensions I have installed to minimise the third party cookies that are accepted or left around anyway.
Would an extension like “Cookie AutoDelete” be more effective if configured to just remove all cookies the site set after the tab is closed? With that, it seems like you wouldn’t necessarily care about these bullshit ‘consent’ prompts if everything is purged when you are done with the site…
My strategy against this BS at the moment is to use temporary containers for every tab.
You open your tab, do your thing, when it closes everything gets wiped.
If you click on a link to another domain, it opens in a new container.
Then I just have an extension that auto-clicks ‘accept all cookies’ because they all disappear when I close the tab anyway.
Some of those dialogs where you choose what cookies you want are painful to use!
Keeping the cookies at bay is easy. What measures do you take against more advanced tracking techniques like canvas render fingerprints? There are many such techniques that go far beyond just cookies. Do you use straight NoScript? The internet is woefully broken without JavaScript.
Nothing more than what ublock origin provides, plus some router level ad/tracker blocking. Blocking 3rd party trackers is an easy measure I can take that doesn’t break the internet, and this includes a lot of companies known to use fingerprinting. It’s not perfect, but then nothing is.
Aside from that I don’t really want to go down the canvas blocking, noscript rabbit hole. I used to do it and found I was just spending too much time disabling noscript for sites I was never going to revisit. Places I frequent tend to have RSS so I just use that anyway.
This isn’t about cookies. The laws talk about personally identifiable information. Cookies are one way of collecting this, but they’re not the only way. With your approach, if the site uses some other mechanism (tied to IP address, for example), then it is completely legal. If you don’t permit it and the site is found to be violating the law then the information commissioner can impose huge fines.
I do the same on my laptop. On my iPhone I’ve started strictly using private browsing mode. No problems accepting all cookies when I kill the tab in 3 minutes anyways.
I generally just select the “accept cookies” popup in the Firefox inspector and delete it. Works pretty well.