Firefox blocks known trackers and isolates third party cookies per site. They do have legitimate uses, and not every site has made the switch to modern tech that could replace it.
Why has Firefox not removed third-party cookies, despite the fact that Chrome has begun phasing them out?
Submitted 8 months ago by King@lemy.lol to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
TheBlackLounge@lemm.ee 8 months ago
GigglyBobble@kbin.social 8 months ago
That's the superior approach and Firefox introduced it far earlier than Google addressed the problem.
Why OP is blindly arguing in that corp's favor and ignoring all the reasoning provided here, is beyond me. Shilling?
rambaroo@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Yeah my company uses them for integrating some of our apps together. They aren’t used for tracking at all, and we’d be up shits creek if they were, because our (corporate) customers audit that sort of thing.
Because of Google we’ve had to develop an alternative solution which has taken years to develop and is only getting deployed now. Those fuckers have way too much power over the Internet.
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 8 months ago
There’s a check box in FF settings to block all third party cookies.
You should probably educate yourself before making inaccurate claims.
lengau@midwest.social 8 months ago
The option to disable third party cookies has been in pretty much every browser (Chrome included) for decades. OP is talking about Google’s move to make it the default.
Pantherina@feddit.de 8 months ago
Is it default? Idk
Bronco1676@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
No because some pages might break
Overspark@feddit.nl 8 months ago
Firefox has been able to block all third-party / cross-site cookies for ages. It’s just not the default because it breaks some sites. But dive into the settings and you can easily set it to block all cross-site cookies, or even all cookies if you prefer.
Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I’m confused. Didn’t this start at the beginning of last year?
Rob@lemdro.id 8 months ago
Why would an open source browser remove a feature just because a corperation did it. Talking like that, might as well use Chrome. Oh wait. But it’s spware/ anti AdBlock.
Why doesn’t Firefox make AdBlock harder since Google does the same? Firefox isn’t competing for Market share, it’s suppose to be an Opensource browser and being so should mean that you have the best features for the user, and not a company.
Had you ever asked why would Google get rid of 3rd party cookies, and also ask, what did they replace 3rd party cookies with? another way for them to track you, and only them. They took potential revenue from sites that aren’t them just because they can.
King@lemy.lol 8 months ago
Third-party cookies make tracking users easier. I am not asking Firefox to follow Chrome at each step.
I am just asking for the privacy browser to improve users’ privacy by removing support for third-party cookies, because it theoretically will not break anything.
c10l@lemmy.world 8 months ago
3rd party cookies make tracking users easier when the same cookie can be used on many websites.
Firefox does 2 things to protect you from that: it blocks known trackers cookies by default; and for the others it isolates them per domain so that kind of tracking doesn’t happen. That ensures you’re not tracked and at the same time it doesn’t break any functionality.
If you want to completely block them you can. There’s more info here: …mozilla.org/…/third-party-cookies-firefox-tracki…
Rob@lemdro.id 8 months ago
I do agree, that removing it would improve user privacy, however I feel that should be up to the user to decide on their own if they want or don’t want third party tracking cookies as it has been.
The alternative that Google proposed I don’t think it’s any better then what is was before with 3rd party tracking cookies. I’d say it’s worse since it introduces new problems while keeping old problems under a new name.
If everything goes through Google, no one has personal control and that’s what i’m against. This encourages what open source users should be against.
GBU_28@lemm.ee 8 months ago
You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about.
Spotlight7573@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I believe Mozilla said it best here:
blog.mozilla.org/…/improving-privacy-without-brea…
Firefox’s privacy protections must be usable on the web, or people will simply stop using Firefox altogether.
The web is not at the stage yet where third-party cookies can be disabled entirely. Chrome’s phase out of them this year should push all those sites still clinging to them to fix their sites. This should mean less problems when using Firefox’s privacy features. Firefox won’t necessarily need to remove the feature soon anyways since it already isolates them per site.
mp3@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
They will likely remove them soon I suppose. And it’s easier to leave the option available in case it breaks someone’s use-cass until they fix it.
prex@aussie.zone 8 months ago
It’s been an option for as long as I can remember. I suppose they are leaving the default until websites adapt to chromes changes.
MeanEYE@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Mine has been blocking for years now. It’s already there, just not on by default. It does break some sites so am assuming that’s the reason. I just got use to the fact some sites will stop working and moved on.
5opn0o30@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I think they took a different approach and block known trackers but not all cookies.
King@lemy.lol 8 months ago
Blocking third-party cookies is a more effective way to protect user privacy than blocking tracking cookies, because third-party cookies can be used to track users across multiple websites.
CrayonRosary@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Yes, but known 3rd party tracking cookies are already blocked. It’s not like these tracking sites pop up every day, but the list is updated when new ones are found. Meanwhile, 3rd party cookies for legitimate uses are allowed.
GigglyBobble@kbin.social 8 months ago
Because Firefox chose a superior approach and Google was late addressing 3rd party cookies in the first place. Why did Google not adopt Mozilla's superior approach of isolating 3rd party cookies per domain?
rhebucks-zh@incremental.social 8 months ago
money
oktoberpaard@feddit.nl 8 months ago
I’m pretty sure that Chrome’s alternative is designed by Google to track you in a way that’s harder to block and gives them more control over the advertising market by forcing advertisers to play along and use their method instead of collecting your data directly. Sure, it’s more private, but it’s still tracking you.
Firefox, on the other hand, is focusing on completely blocking cross-site tracking. They have no incentive to completely block 3rd party cookies as long as there is also a legitimate use case for them, but I guess they will eventually also block them if Chrome is successful in forcing websites to stop relying on them for core functionality.
Rob@lemdro.id 8 months ago
exactly.
Spotlight7573@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Not sure how Chrome’s alternatives for providing relevant ads are harder to block when you can just turn them off (and examine the data it’s collected) in the settings. These systems are what Chrome is able to do at the moment to work towards blocking third party cookies. They do have an incentive to make something that they know works well for them though, I’ll give you that.
le_saucisson_masquay@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Is that part of the chromium engine which is open source or is it closed source ? Because if it’s not visible it doesn’t matter what Google tells you.
thrawn@lemmy.world 8 months ago
As a relative layman I also have the same question. If you can turn it off, what makes it so bad?
I’m not saying I trust Google, of course. It just seems like they have a vested interest in screwing over third party advertisers and making them more dependent on Google. If you can then disable the Google part, isn’t it a net benefit?
(I don’t use chrome and am not familiar with this change, so I may be missing something)