Mozilla Removes Individual Cookie Management in Firefox 60 (ghacks.net)

Martin Brinkmann, writing for Ghacks: The most recent version of Firefox Nightly, currently at version 60, comes with changes to Firefox's cookie management. Mozilla merged cookie settings with site data in the web browser which impacts how you configure and manage cookie options. If you run Firefox 59 or earlier, you can load about:preferences#privacy to manage privacy related settings in Firefox. If you set the history to "use custom settings for history" or "remember history", you get an option manage cookie settings and to remove individual cookies from Firefox. A click on the link or button opens a new browser window in which all set cookies are listed. You can use it to find set cookies, look up information, remove selected or all cookies. Mozilla engineers changed this in recent versions of Firefox 60 (currently on the Nightly channel).

Comments

Is this some kind of joke?

[rsilvergun]

I often need to whack a broken cookie for a single site. Now I have to blow out all my logins (and worse, my user's logins) just to fix one bad cookie? Are they nuts? You can kiss FF goodbye in any environment more complex than grandma's surfing the net. Everybody else is going to get fed up the first time their IT whacks everything instead of the one busted cookie.

Re:Is this some kind of joke?

[rudy_wayne]

Mozilla just keeps thinking of new ways to make Firefox worse.

Re: Is this some kind of joke?

[Anonymous Coward]

I advise a bit of patience before reacting strongly to this. The article indicates that this is part of a larger plan to reorganize the settings available to users. It is definitely reasonable to reorganize settings, especially to present them in a more intuitive manner. It's entirely possible that functionality to manage individual cookies will be reimplemented prior to an official release of Firefox 60. In that case, this would be much ado about nothing. Users should expect that nightly builds may be broken or incomplete. If Firefox 60 is released officially without the functionality to manage individual cookies, then users have a good reason to be angry. Let's wait and see what happens before ditching Firefox.

Re:Is this some kind of joke?

[Anonymous Coward]

You probably still can. I don't care to check, because I don't particularly care about Firefox any more, but from what I can tell they're simplifying the "basic user" UI to make it merge all storage together, rather than show individual cookies.

The dev tools (Ctrl-Shift-I) contain a UI that lets you view and manipulate ALL local storage, including individual cookies. It doesn't sound like this is going away. So if you need to remove a single cookie in Firefox, you can probably still do it through the dev tools.

This probably isn't quite as bad an idea as the article wants you to think it is because I suspect most people who knew enough to remove individual cookies were probably using the dev tools anyway and not the cookie tools available via the preferences.

Re:Is this some kind of joke?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the new API allows this to be managed through an add-on, then I'm more-or-less okay with it. (Though the FF engineers should then write that plugin to restore missing functionality, amirite??)

FF can't win. People complained (and still do) about "bloat" in the browser. The logical conclusion from the whining masses is that the "bloat" should be stripped-out. But then a feature is stripped out, and another set of people say "OH, NO, not THAT feature, I meant all the other features that I don't use".

Yes, I like the capability to delete individual cookies, but if I have to install a plugin to do that, I'll do it. .. and hopefully that plugin doesn't spy on all my shit and transmit those cookies to Chinese servers, right?

Re: Is this some kind of joke?

[Anonymous Coward]

Come again? I can delete bar.com's cookies without affecting them?

Re:Is this some kind of joke?

[GameboyRMH]

Looks like Cookie Manager can replace the lost functionality:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-...

Re: Is this some kind of joke?

[war4peace]

I disagree, and here's why.
While it's true that this is a nightly build, it's false to say "wait". The sooner the customer base reacts, the greater the chance this functionality change will be looked at and changed BEFORE it goes into release.
I'm past the "let's hope they don't do it" hope, that mentality died years ago.
And yes, I would be one of the affected users, there's a corporate product that I use all the time (part of my job) that consistently mangles cookies, and the simplest solution is to delete cookies related to that environment only. This happens once or twice a week. Now, losing all my logins to 50-ish different websites which I am supposed to have easy access to at all times is a big no-no, a loss of productivity and increased frustration is what it's going to give me instead.

They want to reorganize settings? Cool! Fork the code and knock yourselves out. Or give me a "classic mode" alternative. But really, removing functionality was never a good idea.

Re: Is this some kind of joke?

[PPH]

Who's the other guy? I need to buy him a drink.

Re:Is this some kind of joke?

[Hallux-F-Sinister]

You probably still can. I don't care to check, because I don't particularly care about Firefox any more, but from what I can tell they're simplifying the "basic user" UI to make it merge all storage together, rather than show individual cookies.

The dev tools (Ctrl-Shift-I) contain a UI that lets you view and manipulate ALL local storage, including individual cookies. It doesn't sound like this is going away. So if you need to remove a single cookie in Firefox, you can probably still do it through the dev tools.

This probably isn't quite as bad an idea as the article wants you to think it is because I suspect most people who knew enough to remove individual cookies were probably using the dev tools anyway and not the cookie tools available via the preferences.

Why do I, as a non-dev, need to access dev tools to do something that as a user, I'd like to be able to do? Maybe I'm just splitting hairs here, but it feels a bit like some clown making me pull my car over, and switch the gear selector lever into park to unlock the ability to change stations on the radio, so that I won't fiddle with it while I'm driving. Finding out that a car I'm looking at buying has this feature would probably make me choose a different car, or, if all cars had that feature, no car at all.

Re: Is this some kind of joke?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and you can disable telemetry collection without affecting telemetry collection.

Re:Is this some kind of joke?

[SeaFox]

I often need to whack a broken cookie for a single site. Now I have to blow out all my logins (and worse, my user's logins) just to fix one bad cookie?

It appears they are grouping all local data (cookies, cache, etc) under one heading per site. You can still search by site and remove data specific to that site, leaving other sites' data untouched, but you can't clear only cookies and leave cache, or just one cookie out of several, for example.

I suppose that if a large number of people use the same PC and user account, then yes, you will wipe out all other users' cache and cookies for the same domain. I guess Mozilla assumes most people would have a separate user account on the OS from other users, or would utilize separate browser profiles in some way to keep their data segregated from other surfers' info.

Re: Is this some kind of joke?

[Teun]

A G&T with lime please.

Re:Is this some kind of joke?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

FF can't win. People complained (and still do) about "bloat" in the browser. The logical conclusion from the whining masses is that the "bloat" should be stripped-out. But then a feature is stripped out, and another set of people say "OH, NO, not THAT feature, I meant all the other features that I don't use".

That's a little unfair. I saw a lot of people complaining about bloat that wasn't really related to the core browsing functionality and could just as well have been handled through add-ons. I'm not sure that in my entire life I've ever seen a Firefox user complain that its flexibility as an actual web browser was a bad thing or that the ability to configure everyday things like cookies should be nerfed.

It seems to me that Firefox has, and has always had, a clear way to "win": It needs to be the trustworthy, reliable, highly customisable browser that made it attractive, and then focus on quality of implementation as an actual web browser instead of all the peripheral junk.

Unfortunately, they seem to be doing almost everything but that. They gave up huge amounts of customisation with 57, and I am still irritated every time I have to use it by so many little things that are worse than they were before as a direct result, while literally nothing has improved perceptibly for me. It's also been flaky since 57 and just plain broken since 58 in several ways, making a mockery of the claims about the architecture changes improving speed and reliability. I must be the unluckiest person on the planet given how many people seem to defend that change every time the subject comes up!

Re:Is this some kind of joke?

[DemoLiter3]

So, it's like Internet Explorer now?

Re: Is this some kind of joke?

[jaminJay]

You should run that site in a container: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-...

Re: Is this some kind of joke?

[jimbo]

Most power users edit individual cookies through the developer tools, they still can. A redundant method was removed.

Re: Is this some kind of joke?

[Wootery]

Whatever's going.

We appear to have encountered an anomalous value of 2.

Re: Is this some kind of joke?

[war4peace]

Maybe that's what FX development want... to externalize all shit to 3rd party addons.

As always

[smooth wombat]

This is why you never let your programmers program your applications. No good can come of it.

The Chrome plating of Firefox continues

[Dracos]

When is Mozilla going to realize that Firefox got popular because of developers and power users and the fact that they keep doing things like this that are hostile to developers and power users is a contributing factor to Firefox's decline in usage?

WTF?

[sremick]

Seriously? I use this all the time. This REALLY pisses me off. Sure, someone will quickly make an add-on, but basic core functionality shouldn't depend on a pile of third-party add-ons.

Re:WTF?

[allo]

Or waterfox. Has a more recent code base with security patches and performance improvements.

Re:WTF?

[techno-vampire]

...basic core functionality shouldn't depend on a pile of third-party add-ons.

Tell that to the Gnome 3 devs and watch them laugh at you.

Done with FF

[StuartHankins]

First they broke a lot of extensions including ScrapBook which I've used for a very long time. So I reverted back to 56 which was a pain but doable, hoping there would be some upgrade path. Nope, the new architecture doesn't support a lot of the plugin features and I'm hearing that repeatedly from multiple places. They got rid of the status bar and I'm using an extension so I can read mouseover events easier. Now they're making it difficult to delete individual cookies? WTF, Firefox team. You know, it's been a nice run and all, but I'm spending more time keeping it working the same way than I should be. Enough is enough.

Re:Done with FF

[Anonymous Coward]

Who gives a shit about speed if it doesn't do what you want?

Misleading headline

[campuscodi]

The option is still there. You just have to press the "Settings" button in the Cookies section. Weird choice of words, I'll admit that. Some Mozilla UI designer needs to get in trouble, that's for damn sure.

Fixed that for you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozilla XXmoves Individual Cookie Management in Firefox 60

Re: Mozilla cannot be trusted

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozilla's actions are at odds with their publicly professed goals.They hid third party cookies in the previous release and now want to do this. Why even waste time and resources on a user hostile action, how will these actions benefit users?

They are mainly sucking up to Google's interests and hide behind political answers when called out. Firefox now seems to exist more as token competition to Chrome in the browser marketplace so no one can accuse Google of being a monopoly.

We need a genuine open source alternative that places end user interests first than tokenism.

Re:Optimism

[war4peace]

Not much I guess, but at least word would go out and people would be able to plan ahead. I for one am thankful for this article, otherwise I wouldn't have known.