Fx 2.0 / Cookies management

Discussion of features in Mozilla Firefox
WulfTheSaxon
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Post by WulfTheSaxon »

They must be tricked into clicking a (redirect) link on the site.
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Havin_it
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Post by Havin_it »

Well, if it's the homepage that does it (as your example posited -- I don't know if that's typically the case) then it would also be the guilt of any other site that referred you to that domain. Irrespective of that, you'd only be aware what was going on if you were on "prompt" -- same as with the iframe loophole.

I just think it's poor attitude to apparently quit fighting the privacy-invaders just because their ways are many and multifarious, and because of a few sites that use the said techniques for benign purposes. One of the earliest things to capture admirers for Firebird was popup blocking -- and there were plenty of sites broken by that too.

You yourself pointed out that the loopholes that have been mentioned can easily be closed. I think that's largely true of the web-bug issue too -- a bit of whitelisting can tackle all of them to the extent that the user only need submit to these practices if they judge the site benign, or the content worth the cost.

Okay, maybe that's a lot to ask; maybe it's the job of an extension to do these things. God knows the 2.0 release has me on 24-hour bloat-watch over what future releases will bring. But it seems like a risky business leaving something undone which can give IE bragging-rights...!
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Scarlettrunner20
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Re: My favored mode.

Post by Scarlettrunner20 »

cgranade wrote:As for myself, I'd like to restore my favorite mode of operation: under 1.0 ~ 1.5, whenever any site tried to set a cookie, a dialog box asked if I wanted to allow, disallow, allow all or disallow all. I found that approach very useful, as I don't mind some 3rd party cookies, whereas there are some 1st party cookies that I do mind. That said, I suppose that with the WHATWG DOM Storage, cookies will become more and more rare. Does there exist a system for managing DOM Storage policies?


I haven't read this entire thread yet so maybe this answered in a later post.

You can still do that in 2.0. That is what I have always done from way back. 2.0 when it encounters a site where it doesn't have a cookies permission rule already, asks me what to do. I generally check the box to disallow all cookies from that site PERMANENTLY. If later, I realize I need to allow a few session cookies so I can do something at the site that requires cookies, then I go into the list and remove the site from "block" and then refresh the page. That gives me an immediate popup asking if I want to allow cookies. I then examine each cookie and allow session ones only and only those necessary for whatever I am trying to do there.

Under "keep until" check "ask me every time". That will give you the old dialog box that you want.

As for the feature not working, are you saying that sites are setting secret cookies that are not in cookie manager? I have never seen this feature NOT work unless Fx is allowing secret cookies to be set that cannot be found anywhere on my hard drive. Even Google Analytic cookies which are, of course, not affected by these settings we are discussing show up in View Cookies. For Google Analytic cookies you will need Customize Google (which Opera and IE don't have) in order to block the sending of the data collected on your habits to Google. (Everyone using Fx needs Customize Google if they care about their privacy). But for other cookies is Mozilla claiming in the bug, (I haven't read it yet and have to leave now), that Fx has always been incapable of listing the cookies placed on our hard drives? That would be an astounding admission and, if true, would send many of us running as fast as we can to get traditonal third party cookie handlers and would make a lot of people very angry.
WulfTheSaxon
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Post by WulfTheSaxon »

No, they're just saying that there are ways to set a third party cookie (it will still be displayed) that circumvent the setting to not allow any 3rd party cookies.
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Scarlettrunner20
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Post by Scarlettrunner20 »

Thanks for the clarification. It must be a rare occurence and thus not a justification for getting rid of this setting seems to me. I have never seen a third party cookie displayed and I have been using Fx for about 5 years. Nor have seen one displayed in Mozilla - now SeaMonkey. I am very careful about cookies. The first software I bought shortly after getting my first computer in '99 was Cookie Crusher which I still use on my old 98SE machine. I'm fanatical about cookies and I very frequently check the View Cookies list so I can immediately remove any session cookies I had to allow for something like banking. I would have seen any third party cookie and if I had I would have posted here and elsewhere asking how could that happen and how to stop it in the future but I haven't seen any third party ones.

Google Analytic cookies are a kind of exception since those are third party cookies set as first party so if we include them then yes only in the last six months have I ever seen a "third party" cookie set as a first party one on my machines and Customize Google takes care of those.

So, I think it a poor argument to pull this feature out of Fx on the grounds that it doesn't work.
rayo
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Post by rayo »

smsmith wrote:Edit: I should have done my homework first. You can add network.cookie.blockFutureCookies and set it to true (in either about:config or in user.js) to get this functionality back.


I followed your suggestion and altered this in about:config and it worked as you said. Then i decided to do a fresh install of Fx2 and it now does not work.

What other settings do you think I might need to change? I tried to insert a screen shot of about: config for network.cookie but it did not work.
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Scarlettrunner20
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Post by Scarlettrunner20 »

Have you tried a fresh, new profile with this added in about:config? Did it work? If so, then you have a borked profile.
kevin_y
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Post by kevin_y »

Even after I set network.cookie.cookieBehavior to 1 in about:config (which supposedly blocks third-party cookies), I still see all kinds of weird cookies. Does this thing even work?
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smsmith
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Post by smsmith »

kevin_y,

It only partially works, that's why the pref was removed from facing forward.

@rayo,
If you set the pref to true, then delete cookies from the sites, you should not see anymore cookies from those sites. If you did the fresh install, are you still using the same profile? Sounds like maybe not or something else is messing with you, as Scarlettrunner20 suggested.
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rayo
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Post by rayo »

smsmith wrote:If you did the fresh install, are you still using the same profile?


I uninstalled Fx, deleted all references to Fx in files and the registry. I did all this because there was something causing FX to load slowly and sometimes not even find the server.

Now it's fast but does not present the cookies choice. Maybe that setting that you mentioned had to be in combination with something from Fx 1.5 as I initially installed Fx 2 over the top of Fx 1.5.

The cookies choice is no big loss as I have set network.cookie.cookieBehavior to 1 but I was interested to see what was allowing the cookie choice to occur.

I have images of OS pre Fx2 and I'll try another installation of Fx 2 over Fx 1.5 and then compare the about:config configurations with the current one.
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Scarlettrunner20
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Post by Scarlettrunner20 »

Did you delete your PROFILE when you deleted references to Fx? The profile is the problem I think. Create a new profile..virgin, squeaky clean profile. Don't add any extensions or themes yet. Just a new profile and see if you get the cookies choice. I have to create new profiles about two or three times a year as they go bad. Always suspect the profile first when something isn't right and you decide to troubleshoot. First step should be to create a new profile which takes all of a few seconds. Everything will be default on it and there will be no extensions. This way you can quickly see if your theme, an extension, something you added to the userchrome.css file, etc. is causing a problem or you may just have a corrupt profile. It happens.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager#Windows
http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/profile
rayo
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Post by rayo »

Scarlettrunner20 wrote:Did you delete your PROFILE when you deleted references to Fx? The profile is the problem I think.


Yes I did. Since profiles are located in Mozilla/Firefox/ , it was automatically deleted, but I did check whether the Mozilla folder had been totally deleted before installing Fx 2.

As for creating a new profile, although I added in about:config network.cookie.blockFuturecookies True,
it still did not ask me whether I wanted to accept a cookie. To me this implies that some remnant of Fx 1.5 remains when Fx 2 is installed over it.
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smsmith
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Post by smsmith »

You need to make sure you spell it right if it is something that needs to be added (I'm pretty sure you ADD it as opposed to modify it). If you spelled it that way above in your about:config, it won't work.

It should be network.cookie.blockFutureCookies

See how you wrote network.cookie.blockFuturecookies? Preferences are case sensitive.
Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime.
I like poetry, long walks on the beach and poking dead things with a stick.
Please do not PM me for personal support. Keep posts here in the Forums instead and we all learn.
rayo
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Post by rayo »

smsmith wrote:You need to make sure you spell it right if it is something that needs to be added (I'm pretty sure you ADD it as opposed to modify it). If you spelled it that way above in your about:config, it won't work.

It should be network.cookie.blockFutureCookies

See how you wrote network.cookie.blockFuturecookies? Preferences are case sensitive.


I checked and it was identical but, just in case I was not seeing correctly, I deleted it from prefs.js, then checked to see if it was still in about:config and it wasn't. Relaunched Fx and used copy and paste to enter it as a new entry in about:config, end result - no prompting cookie window.

As I said earlier, I'll try installing Fx 2 over Fx 1.5 and see if I can replicate that elusive cookie window.

Can I suggest that you try a new profile and see if you get the cookie prompt? After you have finished checking and delete the profile, don't delete the files as I did. It deleted the files for my current Fx and it kept on telling me that Fx was running. Had to restore an image to get back. I guess that's what happens when you're thinking about something else during the process.
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smsmith
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Post by smsmith »

If I get some time, I'll play around in a new profile with Fx 1.5 and with 2.0. I know this worked in 2.0 because I used to have it set that way. When I made my new profile recently, I abandoned it because there are some sites where I want to periodically remove the cookies and then get new ones set.

I'll report back probably this weekend...
Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime.
I like poetry, long walks on the beach and poking dead things with a stick.
Please do not PM me for personal support. Keep posts here in the Forums instead and we all learn.
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