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Zombie Cookies Just Won't Die

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the zombie-want-caaaaache dept.

GMGruman wrote in to say "Microsoft embarrassed itself last week when it got caught using 'zombie cookies' — a form of tracking cookies that users can't delete, as they come back to life after you've 'killed' them. Microsoft says it'll stop the 'aberrant' practice. But Woody Leonhard says you ain't seen nothing yet. It turns out HTML5 offers a technical mechanism to give zombie cookies a new lease on life — and the Web browsers' private-browsing features can't stop them."

2 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. No problem by maxwell+demon · · Score: 5, Informative

    The "standard" Firefox plugins already take care of it.

    No DOM storage without JavaScript, no Flash cookies without Flash -> NoScript
    Most tracking cookies come from ad networks -> AdBlock Plus
    Most tracking cookies come from third party domains -> RequestPolicy.
    And if you get one anyway, you can also get rid of it -> BetterPrivacy.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  2. Re:Stop blaming the Sites by maxwell+demon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Flash is an external process and thus bypasses browser settings. It even works cross-browser: A "Flash cookie" (LSO) can e.g. be set in Firefox and then read in Opera.

    For HTML5 features however, I have to agree with you.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.