[PLUG] Resolved: Firefox Cookie Management

[Richard C. Steffens]

On 11/17/2011 10:52 AM, Robert Munro wrote:
>
> If you prefer not to be tracked and have all your web browsing sliced,
> diced and analyzed to a fare-thee-freakin-well by every marketeer and
> gawd knows who else on the planet, the safest thing to do is allow as
> few cookies as possible, and even restrict many to be session cookies.
>
> You can do this in Firefox at Edit>  Preferences>  Privacy, simply by
> unchecking the box 'Accept cookies from sites' and setting up explicit
> permissions with the Exceptions button, which opens a list of cookies.

When I get to the Privacy screen I have to click on "remove individual 
cookies" to get to the list of cookies. The box to uncheck to "Accept 
cookies from sites" isn't there. To get to that option I had to choose 
"Use custom settings for history" from the "Firefox will: " drop down 
box under the History heading. That changes the Privacy window so that I 
have a button for "Exceptions..." and another for "Show Cookies...". 
When I click on "Show Cookies..." I get a separate "Cookies" window with 
buttons to remove individual cookies or all cookies.

> Go through the list and delete all cookies for websites that you don't
> recognize as places such as forums where you've registered an account.

I looked at that list and saw dozens of cookies that I could tell were 
places that I don't visit often. I decided the easier way to test things 
would be to save a copy of my Firefox profile and then clear all cookies 
and start fresh.

I unchecked "Accept cookies from sites" and then visited a site I 
remember needing cookies set. Sure enough it didn't work right, so I 
clicked on "Exceptions..." and added that site to the list. After that 
it worked correctly.

The next site I discovered needed an exception is Comcast's web e-mail 
interface. I could get as far as the sign in page. But after typing in 
my user name and password I was kicked back to the preceding page. I 
tried adding that web site as an exception but that didn't work. It only 
worked again when I rechecked "Allow cookies from sites".

After doing that and visiting the Comcast e-mail site I found Comcast 
sets 28 cookies on eight "Sites" two of which aren't Comcast - one was 
from Yahoo and the other was from Google. I clicked on "Remove All 
Cookies" again, and unchecked "Accept third-party cookies" and now I get 
26 cookies on six "Sites" and Google and Yahoo are not there.

One other thing to try later is to allow exceptions for all six Comcast 
sites and see if that will let me uncheck "Accept cookies from sites".

On 11/17/2011 12:44 PM, Roderick A. Anderson wrote:

> There is also Ghostery. http://www.ghostery.com   This gets at the
> non-cookie tracking tricks used by sites.

Very nice. I installed that and see many tracking attempts blocked on 
various pages I visit.

Thanks to all who responded.

-- 
Regards,

Dick Steffens