Accepting Cookies from Only One Site on the Web?

Greyfox asks "With the new /. system in place, I want to accept cookies from /., but I still don't care to get them from the rest of the Internet. Is it possible to set Netscape up to do this and if not is there some proxy server out there that will do it for me, perhaps filtering cookies from every site that's not on a list specified in a config file? "

Comments

JunkBuster

[Anonymous Coward]

Try using the Internet JunkBuster Proxy. "The Internet Junkbuster stops almost all cookies, except from sites you tell it are allowed to set cookies. It also helps prevent the disclosure of other details that surfers often want kept private, such as information about the page clicked on, and their computer's software and hardware configuration. These features can be optionally disabled or altered. It has other options too, like blocking certain URLs (to stop banner ads).

You could also edit your cookie file (delete all the cookies you don't want), and rename it. Copy that version to the main cookie file every time you start your browser (use a shell script with commands like "cp -f ~/.netscape/cookies.ok ~/.netscape/cookies ; netscape" for Netscape on UNIX). This way you wouldn't have to install any software.

easiest solution

[jellicle]

One possible solution, which requires no additional software, is to change the permissions on the file where the cookies are stored on your drive (cookies.txt for Netscape) to read-only - then edit it and remove all the cookies except those from the one site you visit. You'll still get and send cookies from other sites, but they will never be written to the drive and thus won't last beyond a single session - no long-term tracking. And the cookies from your one site will be available for the long term (until whenever the expiration date is, possibly years in the future).

This eliminates the most objectionable aspects of cookies without producing any noticeable downside or loss of functionality. Some people want to get serious and eliminate all cookies, but this makes it quite difficult to participate in any sort of online commerce, which can be a hassle.

--
Michael Sims

Re:easiest solution

[PigleT]

Quite so.
I fail to see why cookies should be generally removed anyway - as long as you're not viewing dodgy sites, what harm comes from them? Given that they're useful for slashdot, my.netscape, amazon, millions of other online-ordering places, why restrict them at all?

Re:easiest solution

[reverse solidus]

Most every time you get a banner ad, it comes from one of the big advertising sites. That means that the http GET header returns a cookie for that site. Advertisers can build up a database, based on cookies, of exactly which sites you view. Combined with a filled out registration form from any of the ad network's sites, this means they know who you are and exactly what you are viewing. Some people don't really care, others
consider it all very creepy.

Note that if it were just an individual advertiser, it wouldn't really matter. But the advertisers have banded together into networks so that nearly every banner ad comes from just one of a few central sites. Also, individual ad networks can share information, building up a more complete profile. You have no say in this.

That's why you'll hear people talk about good cookies and evil cookies. Good cookies (like slashdot's) help you, evil cookies give away private information (like your surfing habits) without your knowledge or consent.

Re:easiest solution

[Anonymous Coward]

If you use Netscape, go into Preferences/Advanced and select "Only accept cookies originating from the same server as the page being viewed".

Junkbusters should do the trick...

[elitaylor]

Junkbusters has a great proxy that will allow you to reject all cookies except for the domains you choose.

I had it set up to reject all cookies except those from /. and the New York Time's website.

The documentation is pretty self-explanatory, but if you have problems, drop me a line.

KFM?

[FigWig]

Doesn't kfm allow you to accept cookies on a site-by-site basis?

Use AtGuard under Windows

[Paul Johnson]

I run Windows NT and 98 (for various good and valuable reasons), and I use AtGuard to do this. It blocks cookies, referer, from and browser fields on a site-by-site basis, and also acts as a firewall and ad-blocker. Oh, and it can re-write animated gifs to stop after one iteration.

Paul.

JunkBusters works wonderfully

[R@Bastard]

Junkbusters

It's pretty amazingly flexible, and runs on all (?) platforms. You've gotta feed it a huge regex file for it to work on ads, but I those are easy to find.

I haven't done exactly what you're asking for, but I expect it's possible and even trivial.

InterMute

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm stuck on an NT system (never mind the reasons). I use a shareware called "interMute" (www.intermute.com) to block cookies except from specified sites, and to filter out other crap such as banner ads. It runs as a proxy server on my machine, and configures Netscape, IE, and Opera automatically when it starts up.

You didn't specify which OS you're using, so I don't know if this will work for you or not.

Mozilla

[kneecap]

Doesn't Mozilla have an option to selectivly reject or accept cookies based on the web site?

Re:Mozilla

[MattyT]

I believe it does, but the UI is not there for it yet.

Windows IE 4/5

[LocalYokel]

I've written this a million times (OK, only three of those were on Slashdot) but I'll keep doing it until Netscape gets it right, which stopped happening sometime in the 3.x generation.

Open the Internet control panel, go to Security.

1) (Optional) Change the security level of
"Trusted Sites" to the default, which is
medium security.

2) Add the site you want to accept cookies
from to the "Trusted Sites".

Face it, Netscape stinks compared to IE in all but maybe two features, which I couldn't even name. I s'pose Netscape's browser only makes (loses?) money by those stupid popups, while MS makes money from the cost of Windows. Congratulations to JWZ for both mentioning that Communicator stinks, and for leaving the project altogether.

You might think this is a flame/troll/whatever, but face it, netscape does kinda suck, and I've got some backing on that notion above -- I feel kind of cranky since I'm out of cigarettes, too...
My $0.02
--

Lynx?

[Stonehead]

You can set up Lynx to ask for every cookie to accept it or not (including Always/Never settings), but I have not yet found out how to save these settings. Anyone?

Re:Lynx?

[Demona]

The latest versions of Lynx support accepting and rejection of cookies on a per-domain basis. Look in your lynx.cfg file for the lines COOKIE_ACCEPT_DOMAINS and COOKIE_REJECT_DOMAINS.

Lynx is, quite possibly, my favorite piece of free software. Definitely in the top three, up there with GNU Privacy Guard.