this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2024
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[–] [email protected] 310 points 3 months ago (6 children)

For those who don't care to read the full article:

This basically just confines any cookies generated on a page, to just that page.

So, instead of a cookie from, say, Facebook, being stored on site A, then requested for tracking purposes on site B, each individual site would be sent its own separate Facebook cookie, that only gets used on that site, preventing it from tracking you anywhere outside of the specific site you got it from in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 205 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Hahahahaha so it doesn't break anything that still relies on cookies, but neuters the ability to share them.

That's awesome

[–] [email protected] 58 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Honestly, I thought that's how it already worked.

Edit: I think what I'm remembering is that you can define the cookies by site/domain, and restrict to just those. And normally would, for security reasons.

But some asshole sites like Facebook are cookies that are world-readable for tracking, and this breaks that.

Someone correct me if I got it wrong.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Total Cookie Protection was already a feature, (introduced on Feb 23st 2021) but it was only for people using Firefox's Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) on strict mode.

They had a less powerful third-party cookie blocking feature for users that didn't have ETP on strict mode, that blocked third party cookies on specific block lists. (i.e. known tracking companies)

This just expanded that original functionality, by making it happen on any domain, and have it be the default for all users, rather than an opt-in feature of Enhanced Tracking Protection.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

That's not what I was thinking of, which was even more fundamental. But that's good info (and another way to cover stuff in the article).

Edit: what I was thinking originally was really stupid, that 3rd-party cookies weren't allowed at all. Which was really dumb since of course they are.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 months ago (2 children)

They've been doing this with container tabs, so this must be the successor to that idea (I'm going to assume they'll still have container tabs).

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Container tabs are still a thing in FF. This is based on that work, if I remember correctly.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I love container tabs. It's one of the reasons I went back to FF.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

Same, they're an absolute game changer for me. I have to use multiple different identities in work due to separate active directories and container tabs makes it super easy

[–] snaggen 7 points 3 months ago

Container tabs are still useful, as they let you use multiple Cookie jars for the same site. So, it is very easy to have multiple accounts on s site.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Unless that cookie was somehow important for you to use both sites, but thats incredibly rare.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

From my experience, blocking 3rd party cookies in general doesn't seem to make any difference for site functionality anyways. Though I never log into sites with a Google or FB account other than Google or FB sites (and rarely at all for the latter).

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

I would love to see an icon of a neutered cookie please 🥺😄.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 3 months ago

Basically creates a fake VM like environment for each site.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago

For those who don't care to read the full article

Or even the whole title, really

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Isn't this basically Firefox's version of the third party cookie block that Chrome rolled out a few months ago? Or am I missing something here?

I mean, it's good news either way but I just want to know if this is somehow different or better.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago

Sites are much more contained now. Is much more like a profile per site.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I don't know why this wasn't the case long ago.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago

It increases implementation complexity of the browser and loses people who fund Firefox and contribute code $$$

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Disabling cross site cookie is already a thing for decades...

Same with Do Not Track requests.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Do Not Track has never really done anything, it just asks websites politely to not track you. There's no legal or technical limitation here.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I still much rather have it than not. It also lead to the spiritual successor GPC which does actually have regulatory requirements under the CCPA.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Fair. However, it also provides websites with additional information to fingerprint you, so that's a thing too.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Disabling cross site cookies and allowing them to exist while siloed within the specific sites that need them are two different things.

Previous methods of disabling cross site cookies would often break functionality, or prevent a site from using their own analytics software that they contracted out from a third party.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Thank you for your explanation, tbat greatly clears up my confusion.

TBH, if a person's concern is being tracked by, for example, Facebook; then this just lets Facebook continue tracking them without directly allowing Facebook's anaylitics customers to track them to another site directly (but indirectly that information can still be provided). But I guess for all the people giving FB and Google those proviledges better to have this than not.