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Firefox 44 Deletes Fine-Grained Cookie Management (mozilla.org)

ewhac writes: Among its other desirable features, Firefox included a feature allowing very fine-grained cookie management. When enabled, every time a Web site asked to set a cookie, Firefox would raise a dialog containing information about the cookie requested, which you could then approve or deny. An "exception" list also allowed you to mark selected domains as "Always allow" or "Always deny", so that the dialog would not appear for frequently-visited sites. It was an excellent way to maintain close, custom control over which sites could set cookies, and which specific cookies they could set. It also helped easily identify poorly-coded sites that unnecessarily requested cookies for every single asset, or which would hit the browser with a "cookie storm" — hundreds of concurrent cookie requests.

Mozilla quietly deleted this feature from Firefox 44, with no functional equivalent put in its place. Further, users who had enabled the "Ask before accept" feature have had that preference silently changed to, "Accept normally." The proffered excuse for the removal was that the feature was unmaintained, and that its users were, "probably crashing multiple times a day as a result" (although no evidence was presented to support this assertion). Mozilla's apparent position is that users wishing fine-grained cookie control should be using a third-party add-on instead, and that an "Ask before accept" option was, "not really nice to use on today's Web."

12 of 471 comments (clear)

  1. There's an add-on for that.. by kheldan · · Score: 5, Informative

    I have an add-on that keeps only the cookies I explicitly select, the rest get deleted whenever I close Firefox, or when I manually delete cache and cookies with shift-control-delete. Just get that and have all the 'fine-grained' control you want.

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
    1. Re:There's an add-on for that.. by kheldan · · Score: 5, Informative

      Please identify WHICH add-on.

      'selectivecookiedelete' v4.1.1
      Just checked it, it's still doing it's job, keeping the whitelisted cookies, deleting everything else.

      --
      Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
    2. Re:There's an add-on for that.. by ShaunC · · Score: 5, Informative

      I use Self-Destructing Cookies, which accepts cookies long enough to make a session work and then deletes them automatically when you close the related tab. There's a whitelist feature.

      Of course as per usual with a Firefox update, I now have no clue whether or not that extension will continue working, or whether I need to tweak some arcane setting to keep it working, or whether said arcane setting has been removed from the browser entirely... So I'll just stick with my current version for awhile. Other people can be the guinea pigs and I'll look for their reports. The trouble with that approach is that with each release, there are fewer other users out there. Mozilla seems determined to run Firefox into the ground and it's just a sad thing to watch.

      --
      Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
  2. Proud to have self-destructing cookies installed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I leave a site, its cookies explode.

  3. Re:The gun is pointing at the foot by Artem+S.+Tashkinov · · Score: 5, Informative

    You might have missed Pale Moon - the people behind it forked Firefox just before Mozilla decided to foist universally hated Australis on its users.

  4. Re:Because Reasons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    > Would anyone care to recommend a cookie management add-on?

    Self-Destructing Cookies

    Cookies are automatically deleted when you navigate away from the web page that placed them. You can designate some to persist, although it isn't the most convenient UI.

  5. Re: The gun is pointing at the foot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I use this feature and have for ages. I deny every site by default. If I notice something I want doesn't work I switch it to allow for session. If it's a site I want to stay logged into I will switch to allow. It has never crashed on me. FF doesn't actually crash more than a few times per year on me at all.

  6. Re:The gun is pointing at the foot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I love to look at Mozilla's own Firefox satisfaction stats. I check them daily. Currently the overall sentiment is 91% unhappy, and only 9% happy. When it comes to Firefox for Android, over 99% are unhappy, and only 1% are happy!

    Mozilla's own stats show that their users hate Firefox. Even the most despised politicians, the ones who have fucked over millions of people, rarely get satisfaction ratings below 20%. Yet somehow Mozilla has managed to screw up so badly that not even 10% of their users are happy!

  7. Re:The gun is pointing at the foot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Browser market share stats prove you are totally wrong.

    In August 2013 Firefox held over 16% of the browser market.

    Australis was included in Firefox 29, which was released on April 29, 2014.

    By August 2014 Firefox only held about 11% of the browser market.

    By August 2015 Firefox was down to about 8% of the browser market.

    As of January 2016 Firefox is down to around 7% of the browser market.

    Australis has helped drive away over half of Firefox's users.

  8. Re:Deny ALL Cookies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Friendly suggestion: Switch to uBlock Origin. Much faster engine than adblock. Per-element blocking is also built-in and just a context menu away. As an extra bonus it's not sponsored by the very businesses we are trying to block.

  9. Re:Fuck Mozilla by sexconker · · Score: 3, Informative

    Currently I'm evaluating PaleMoon.

  10. Re:Deny ALL Cookies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    Session variables. If people would use those and not just cookies. It'd be better.