this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2023
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Like I care. I've got a plugin that automatically accepts all cookies, and another one that deletes cookies when I leave the page.
By accepting everything, you are also sending most of the time extra data to third parties. What you are doing is ill-advised if you care about privacy.
Not really. If you're using an adblocker, it's the best option. It's the path of least resistance, and tracking is blocked regardless if it's tracked it not. No server will see if you pressed accept or decline. That's why this addon exists.
Just because your browser doesn't show ads doesn't mean you don't get profiled.
Yes it does. Open up your adblocker to see the tracker domains blocked.
How does that work though? The cookies are presumably based on things like your IP and browser metrics, which a site gets from your browser. If your browser throws away the cookies then on your next visit you aren't volunteering that you've been there before. But the site can still likely figure it out, but without the cookies it isn't as certain. With well-constructed cookies they can be almost 100% sure you're the same visitor.
Cookie consent is actually supposed to be about all data tracking.
There are quite a few analytics that do fingerprinting "because it's not a cookie, it's not covered by Cookie Consent". But it is still covered.
Some of them respect the fact that declining cookies is about declining tracking.
So, if you consent to all cookies, you are also consenting to any fingerprinting that doesn't rely on cookies. So deleting cookies wouldn't remove that fingerprinting data.
Gotcha, responsible site owners should not be tracking you if you decline cookies.
Wait doesn't it automatically deny them?
The "I still don't care about Cookies" extension does not, no.
This extension can do that: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/consent-o-matic/
However, since many webpages have illegally made it so refusing consent is more difficult than giving 'consent', that extension is significantly more complex and in my experience doesn't work as reliably, unfortunately.
Is there any extension for android that can do that?
Well, you can install both of these add-ons via this workaround: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/09/29/expanded-extension-support-in-firefox-for-android-nightly/
(I have used both. Both work. Although, again, I'd rather recommend I Still Don't Care About Cookies + Cookie Auto-Delete.)
However, Mozilla plans to make much more extensions available for Android soon, so you might see these regularly available before the end of the year. This is what we know for now: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2023/08/10/prepare-your-firefox-desktop-extension-for-the-upcoming-android-release/
Yeah, sometimes websites have so many hidden checkboxes, that consent-o-matic has a rough time going through all of them. Takes like 10-20 seconds to disable them all at computerized speed.
Imagine doing it by hand, lol.
The above is wrong, the add on attempts to hide the prompt. It doesn't accept nor reject it.
I Still don't care about cookies? From its description:
So, yeah, doesn't accept everything, but might accept some.
Better to use consent-o-matic, which blocks all possible cookies instead of accepting them.
The websites still work perfectly anyway, it only preserves your privacy.