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Can we finally get third party cookies blocked by default and make it necessary to enable them if a person so chooses?

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  • Last reply by cor-el

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Can we finally get Third Party Cookies (TPC) blocked by default and make it necessary to enable them if a person so chooses to allow Third Party Cookies ? No website that I visit requires Third Party Cookies to be enabled for functionality. If a website does require TPC I do not use that website. It's time these were blocked by default instead of enabled. The newest version, 63.0, makes it a bit more of a pain to manage TPC.

It also states that blocking "All cookies (will cause websites to break)". This is not a true statement and seems like a scare tactic to support cookie usage. This statement needs to be deleted.

I realize the necessity of ads on the net and I do allow them on most sites I visit but I do not support any type of tracking by default. Tracking should be enabled only by the user and not the other way around.

Can we finally get Third Party Cookies (TPC) blocked by default and make it necessary to enable them if a person so chooses to allow Third Party Cookies ? No website that I visit requires Third Party Cookies to be enabled for functionality. If a website does require TPC I do not use that website. It's time these were blocked by default instead of enabled. The newest version, 63.0, makes it a bit more of a pain to manage TPC. It also states that blocking "All cookies (will cause websites to break)". This is not a true statement and seems like a scare tactic to support cookie usage. This statement needs to be deleted. I realize the necessity of ads on the net and I do allow them on most sites I visit but I do not support any type of tracking by default. Tracking should be enabled only by the user and not the other way around.

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Unfortunately, many sites do depend on third-party cookies, so disabling them everywhere by default isn't an option. However, starting in Firefox 65 (which will be released in January), Firefox will block third-party cookies from tracking resources by default, which should signifcantly reduce the impact of this issue while minimizing the number of sites that don't work correctly. You can read more about this here: https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2018/08/30/changing-our-approach-to-anti-tracking/.

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yessongs1 said

The newest version, 63.0, makes it a bit more of a pain to manage TPC.

In what way? I guess the fact that you now have two places to manage third party cookie settings is a little confusing:

(1) Under Content Blocking

  • Allow third party cookies (default -- box is not checked)
  • Block third party cookies from tracking servers (check box and use first button)
  • Block all third party cookies (check box and use second button)

(2) Under Cookies and Site Data

  • Allow third party cookies (default -- Accept cookies and site data is selected)
  • Block third party cookies from tracking servers (select "Block cookies and site data" and use first option in the drop-down)
  • Block third party cookies until you have directly visited the site at least once (select "Block cookies and site data" and use second option in the drop-down)
  • Block all third party cookies (select "Block cookies and site data" and use third option in the drop-down)

Those work out the same except that "From Visited" (Safari style) is only under the second section.

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Note that Sync relies on local storage and cookie and won't work when all cookies would be blocked by default. Most or all websites should work with the default settings and a lot of website rely on cookies to work properly.

See also: