7 ms·

I just want temp containers. With all the cookie bullshit you have to pick and choose on each website, I just want to accept it all and then flush the container

I just want temp containers. With all the cookie bullshit you have to pick and choose on each website, I just want to accept it all and then flush the container once I'm done with the website.

npteljes 6y ago
Do you know about the Temporary Containers addon? While it has some quirks, it seems to do exactly what you described, automatically and quite intuitively. I'm a happy user for two years now I think.
- pityJuke 6y ago
  Man, I love this plugin. Every time I open a link from HN, CTRL-Click (configured this way) and into a new container it goes. Combine it with Chameleon, and you can really confuse some sites.
  - andrewl-hn 6y ago
    How did you do that? Cmd+Click opens links in the same container for me, and I can't find the right setting.
    - SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago
      In Temporary Containers settings: Isolation tab, Global, Mouse click. Set "Ctrl/Cmd+Left Mouse" to anything but "Never".
- skykooler 6y ago
  Thank you for this comment! That extension is exactly what I was looking for for a while.
nicky0 6y ago
"Cookie AutoDelete"[1] extension might be what you want. It flushes cookies after you close all tabs for a site. There's an allowlist of sites for which to retain cookies. It's nice when paired with the "I don't care about cookies"[2] extension which auto-accepts cookie requests and makes sure you never see any cookie permission dialogs. 1: https://github.com/Cookie-AutoDelete/Cookie-AutoDelete https://github.com/Cookie-AutoDelete/Cookie-AutoDelete 2: https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/ https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/
- gruez 6y ago
  I don't recommend it as a comprehensive solution because it misses some stuff, such as indexeddb and service workers. For maximum isolation you'd want temporary containers.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - nitrohorse 6y ago
    Looks like Cookie AutoDelete does support IndexedDB [1] and Service Workers [2] by the way. [1] https://github.com/Cookie-AutoDelete/Cookie-AutoDelete/wiki/Documentation#enable-indexeddb-support https://github.com/Cookie-AutoDelete/Cookie-AutoDelete/wiki/... [2] https://github.com/Cookie-AutoDelete/Cookie-AutoDelete/wiki/Documentation#enable-service-workers-support https://github.com/Cookie-AutoDelete/Cookie-AutoDelete/wiki/...
    - gruez 6y ago
      This is news to me. Looks like firefox finally added the requisite APIs. The only issue seems to be that it doesn't play nice with container tabs.
      - jakecopp 6y ago
        I think Cookie Autodelete does though! There's a setting in the extension preferences to make it aware of containers.
        gruez 6y ago
        From the linked documentation: >The API for browsing data cleaning doesn't appear to support Firefox Containers. So if cookies from one container are cleared, then all of that site's data from all containers are deleted regardless of rules.
- davidhyde 6y ago
Santosh83 6y ago
With browser fingerprinting persisting across all these flushes, discarding cookies and trackers won't help. You'll still be identified.
- kohtatsu 6y ago
  Browser fingerprinting is a problem, but the solution isn't to throw your hands up and spoonfeed them identifiers. Blocking tracking scripts does thwart fingerprinting. I really hope we can figure out a decent access model for JavaScript someday.
sundarurfriend 6y ago
Is that different from opening in an incognito window? Genuine question, I don't know how cookies are handled in private windows and what other weirdness they might invite, but they do seem to serve this purpose very well for me. I often 'Open in Private Window' websites that have been linked from reddit or HN but that I don't trust to play nice with my privacy.
- the_pwner224 6y ago
  You can only have one private window instance, with all your private window contents mixed in that scope. And this instance cannot be discarded until you close every single private window. It would be better to have multiple temporary instances so you don't have different websites mixing and don't need to close everything to reset your session on one site.
  - eulenteufel 6y ago
    Are you sure about that? I was testing some web app earlier this year and everytime I opened a new icognito window I was able to log in again as an other user. Opening another tab in the same window shared the state of the window.
    - the_pwner224 6y ago
      Maybe it's different in Chrome. In FF they all share an instance.
- skykooler 6y ago
  A couple things: - If you need to restart the browser, temporary containers are persistent. Several times I've lost a session from an incognito window because Firefox wanted to restart and wouldn't let me load any new pages until I did so. - Pages visited in containers are still included in your browser history, which can be useful if you want to find something again later - You can have multiple temporary container sessions running at once; while all incognito windows share a session, cookies, etc.
OJFord 6y ago
I block all cookies by default with uMatrix (yes, I know.. still using it for now at least though) and then 'Cookie Auto Delete' add-on cleans up anything I whitelist in uMatrix (e.g. to make a checkout work) that I haven't also whitelisted in itself (e.g. I let HN keep a cookie rather than login every day or tab close).
- WilTimSon 6y ago
  > yes, I know.. Wait, I think I missed something, is uMatrix bad somehow?
  - jkob_ 6y ago
    It got archieved, meaning the development of it is on hold
  - OJFord 6y ago
    Sorry, that was lazy of me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24532973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24532973 It's great, it just might not survive too many Firefox version bumps now. Hopefully there'll be a clear successor fork to switch to before long.
weaksauce 6y ago
use the temporary containers addon... the multi-account containers addon is nice too.
dheera 6y ago
You could just block all cookies and make exceptions to enable them for the few websites that you need to log in. The only downside is the GDPR warnings keep coming back. I've been making custom CSS and JS injection rules to get rid of GDPR warnings though by removing or hiding them from the DOM -- any Adblock-style plugin to get rid of all of those? If I hide all the GDPR popups with custom CSS, I will have never seen them, and therefore never agreed to them, and if I block cookies they can't track me anyway.
- worble 6y ago
  uBlocks "Annoyances" list should cover a lot of cookie and GDPR notifications. If that doesn't go far enough there's also a really great ultra annoyances list that'll unstick and remove just about anything that tries to constantly stick itself on your screen. https://github.com/yourduskquibbles/webannoyances https://github.com/yourduskquibbles/webannoyances
  - dheera 6y ago
    Oh thanks, this looks amazing!
  - GekkePrutser 6y ago
    It does but very often a site won't let you proceed until you clicked the ok button on their annoying popup. And because the pop-up is blocked, there's no way to proceed then :( I've seen this on several sites now. Understandable but having to turn off ublock puts you on the radar of all the trackers again.
    - dheera 6y ago
      Maybe we need a more advanced plugin that auto-agrees to all those tracking cookies to make the websites think they got permission and work, but then blocks/deletes those cookies so that they don't actually get to track. Or even better, if the tracking uses some commonly available libraries, actually mess with their tracking data and send it back so that it's a lost cause on their part to even try to track people. Doubly awesome if FireFox can ship a browser that in its default configuration messes up tracking data with false data (hee hee).

I just want temp containers. With all the cookie bullshit you have to pick and choose on each website, I just want to accept it all and then flush the container once I'm done with the website.

npteljes 6y ago

Do you know about the Temporary Containers addon? While it has some quirks, it seems to do exactly what you described, automatically and quite intuitively. I'm a happy user for two years now I think.

pityJuke 6y ago
Man, I love this plugin. Every time I open a link from HN, CTRL-Click (configured this way) and into a new container it goes. Combine it with Chameleon, and you can really confuse some sites.
- andrewl-hn 6y ago
  How did you do that? Cmd+Click opens links in the same container for me, and I can't find the right setting.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago
    In Temporary Containers settings: Isolation tab, Global, Mouse click. Set "Ctrl/Cmd+Left Mouse" to anything but "Never".
skykooler 6y ago
Thank you for this comment! That extension is exactly what I was looking for for a while.

nicky0 6y ago

"Cookie AutoDelete"[1] extension might be what you want. It flushes cookies after you close all tabs for a site. There's an allowlist of sites for which to retain cookies. It's nice when paired with the "I don't care about cookies"[2] extension which auto-accepts cookie requests and makes sure you never see any cookie permission dialogs. 1: https://github.com/Cookie-AutoDelete/Cookie-AutoDelete https://github.com/Cookie-AutoDelete/Cookie-AutoDelete 2: https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/ https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/

gruez 6y ago
I don't recommend it as a comprehensive solution because it misses some stuff, such as indexeddb and service workers. For maximum isolation you'd want temporary containers.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- nitrohorse 6y ago
  Looks like Cookie AutoDelete does support IndexedDB [1] and Service Workers [2] by the way. [1] https://github.com/Cookie-AutoDelete/Cookie-AutoDelete/wiki/Documentation#enable-indexeddb-support https://github.com/Cookie-AutoDelete/Cookie-AutoDelete/wiki/... [2] https://github.com/Cookie-AutoDelete/Cookie-AutoDelete/wiki/Documentation#enable-service-workers-support https://github.com/Cookie-AutoDelete/Cookie-AutoDelete/wiki/...
  - gruez 6y ago
    This is news to me. Looks like firefox finally added the requisite APIs. The only issue seems to be that it doesn't play nice with container tabs.
    - jakecopp 6y ago
      I think Cookie Autodelete does though! There's a setting in the extension preferences to make it aware of containers.
      - gruez 6y ago
        From the linked documentation: >The API for browsing data cleaning doesn't appear to support Firefox Containers. So if cookies from one container are cleared, then all of that site's data from all containers are deleted regardless of rules.
davidhyde 6y ago

Santosh83 6y ago

With browser fingerprinting persisting across all these flushes, discarding cookies and trackers won't help. You'll still be identified.

kohtatsu 6y ago
Browser fingerprinting is a problem, but the solution isn't to throw your hands up and spoonfeed them identifiers. Blocking tracking scripts does thwart fingerprinting. I really hope we can figure out a decent access model for JavaScript someday.

sundarurfriend 6y ago

Is that different from opening in an incognito window? Genuine question, I don't know how cookies are handled in private windows and what other weirdness they might invite, but they do seem to serve this purpose very well for me. I often 'Open in Private Window' websites that have been linked from reddit or HN but that I don't trust to play nice with my privacy.

the_pwner224 6y ago
You can only have one private window instance, with all your private window contents mixed in that scope. And this instance cannot be discarded until you close every single private window. It would be better to have multiple temporary instances so you don't have different websites mixing and don't need to close everything to reset your session on one site.
- eulenteufel 6y ago
  Are you sure about that? I was testing some web app earlier this year and everytime I opened a new icognito window I was able to log in again as an other user. Opening another tab in the same window shared the state of the window.
  - the_pwner224 6y ago
    Maybe it's different in Chrome. In FF they all share an instance.
skykooler 6y ago
A couple things: - If you need to restart the browser, temporary containers are persistent. Several times I've lost a session from an incognito window because Firefox wanted to restart and wouldn't let me load any new pages until I did so. - Pages visited in containers are still included in your browser history, which can be useful if you want to find something again later - You can have multiple temporary container sessions running at once; while all incognito windows share a session, cookies, etc.

OJFord 6y ago

I block all cookies by default with uMatrix (yes, I know.. still using it for now at least though) and then 'Cookie Auto Delete' add-on cleans up anything I whitelist in uMatrix (e.g. to make a checkout work) that I haven't also whitelisted in itself (e.g. I let HN keep a cookie rather than login every day or tab close).

WilTimSon 6y ago
> yes, I know.. Wait, I think I missed something, is uMatrix bad somehow?
- jkob_ 6y ago
  It got archieved, meaning the development of it is on hold
- OJFord 6y ago
  Sorry, that was lazy of me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24532973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24532973 It's great, it just might not survive too many Firefox version bumps now. Hopefully there'll be a clear successor fork to switch to before long.

weaksauce 6y ago

use the temporary containers addon... the multi-account containers addon is nice too.

dheera 6y ago

You could just block all cookies and make exceptions to enable them for the few websites that you need to log in. The only downside is the GDPR warnings keep coming back. I've been making custom CSS and JS injection rules to get rid of GDPR warnings though by removing or hiding them from the DOM -- any Adblock-style plugin to get rid of all of those? If I hide all the GDPR popups with custom CSS, I will have never seen them, and therefore never agreed to them, and if I block cookies they can't track me anyway.

worble 6y ago
uBlocks "Annoyances" list should cover a lot of cookie and GDPR notifications. If that doesn't go far enough there's also a really great ultra annoyances list that'll unstick and remove just about anything that tries to constantly stick itself on your screen. https://github.com/yourduskquibbles/webannoyances https://github.com/yourduskquibbles/webannoyances
- dheera 6y ago
  Oh thanks, this looks amazing!
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  It does but very often a site won't let you proceed until you clicked the ok button on their annoying popup. And because the pop-up is blocked, there's no way to proceed then :( I've seen this on several sites now. Understandable but having to turn off ublock puts you on the radar of all the trackers again.
  - dheera 6y ago
    Maybe we need a more advanced plugin that auto-agrees to all those tracking cookies to make the websites think they got permission and work, but then blocks/deletes those cookies so that they don't actually get to track. Or even better, if the tracking uses some commonly available libraries, actually mess with their tracking data and send it back so that it's a lost cause on their part to even try to track people. Doubly awesome if FireFox can ship a browser that in its default configuration messes up tracking data with false data (hee hee).