Google is apparently testing a new privacy feature in Chrome that blocks third-party cookies by default in the browsers Incognito mode.
While that is great that Google is introducing the change, most Internet users may want to take matters into their own hands instead.
Why not block third-party cookies altogether? Yes, there is a tiny-tiny chance that some services may not work correctly anymore when you make the change. Most users on the other hand should not notice any ill-effects.
Here is the main benefit: advertisers and sites can no longer use third-party cookies to track you on the Internet.
One of the biggest offenders is Google, as it operates ads and other services on the majority of websites.
While disabling third-party cookies won’t do you much good in regards to Google, as you are using Chrome and therefore likely an open book to Google anyway, it does against many other firms on the Internet that track users for financial gains.
Here is how you disable third-party cookies in Chrome:
- Load chrome://settings/cookies in the Chrome address bar. You may also select Menu > Settings > Privacy and security > Third-party cookies to get there manually.
- Enable “Block third-party cookies”.
- Disable “Allow related sites to see your activity in the group”.
The change is active right away. Use the browser normally and take note of any issues that you may encounter. This can be login related issues or other issues, such as missing functionality on websites.
You may add sites to an allow list. If you notice that a site misbehaves after you switched third-party cookies off, you may add it to the list of exceptions to see if that resolves the issue.
Here is how that is done:
- Load chrome://settings/cookies again in the address bar.
- Click on the add button under “Sites allowed to use third-party cookies.
- Add [*.]domainname to add an exception for the entire site. Replace “domainname” with the name of the actual domain, e.g., chipp.in.
Verify that the change has fixed the issue that you have experienced.
Clearly, you’d also want to install a content blocker to speed up web browsing and improve privacy further.
To Google, “Privacy” means only they spy on you.
I’ve just used eMatrix on Pale Moon and uMatrix on Firefox where both extensions block all 3rd party cookies by default, for some years now. Don’t really even need to think about it.
I suppose Google wont classify a cookie as “Third Party” if it comes from one of the many tracking domains it owns!
I’ve always blocked 3rd-party cookies here on Firefox. Cookie behavior on this browser are slightly more complex given default settings are tied to the ‘Total Cookie Protection’ feature.
Personally I disable Firefox’s ‘Total Cookie Protection’, hence hereafter a reminder of the settings related to the browser’s Cookie behavior values together with my preferences :
// COOKIE BEHAVIOR
// 0 = BLOCK NONE, 1 = BLOCK 3RD-PARTY, 2 = BLOCK ALL, 3 = block unvisited, 4 = block trackers, 5 = ISOLATE ALL (default)
// NOTE-1 : This also controls access to 3rd party Web Storage, IndexedDB, Cache API and Service Worker Cache
// NOTE 2 : Auto-sets and resets to 5 if “browser.contentblocking.category” = “strict”
pref(“network.cookie.cookieBehavior”, 1);
pref(“network.cookie.cookieBehavior.pbmode”, 1);
// Content blocking category : ‘strict’ or ‘custom’. Strict mode includes Total Cookie Protection and Smart Block and a stricter list
// NOTE : if ‘custom’ then dynamic storage partitioning is disabled for all sites
pref(“browser.contentblocking.category”, “custom”);
Concerning sites that pose an issue when 3rd-cookies are blocked, I encounter none with the exception of a recent change in Dailymotion’s handling of embedded Dailymotion videos in another site that itself (iframes) which now require 3rd-party cookies (sent to dailymotion, who else?!) when viewing therefor a Dailymotion video embedded in another site. To bypass this stupid modification I use uBlock Origin’s ‘Click-to-load’ feature with :
||dailymotion.com$3p,frame,redirect=click2load.html
That’s about it, for what it’s worth.
Sorry to have to say it, but the article is a bit confusing since it uses a phone screen to display Google while the Chrome browser version came from a computer version given its size.
But maybe there’s some relevance given the number of posts on the subject which point to a computer orientated screen version to display an image of the browser rather than the one on a phone.