I'm surprised this isn't already a thing for decades but ok.
this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2024
438 points (99.1% liked)
Firefox
17937 readers
37 users here now
A place to discuss the news and latest developments on the open-source browser Firefox
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
It is already a thing for 2 years, since this is just an update to an old blog post to say that they'll do even more now.
Aside from that, it wasn't a thing, because as per the usual something on the web breaks when you change behavior like that, because some webpages rely on third-party cookies to provide their core functionality.
Someone (in this case the Tor Browser devs) had to come up with a way to have third-party cookies ~~and eat them, too~~ but isolate them from the third-party cookies that got created on other webpages.
On the technical side, this is called "first-party isolation", and basically each domain you browse to gets its own cookie jar to store first- and third-party cookies in.
Cookie jar... I will use that term from now on
Right? When I first started learning web dev (just a bit) I thought cookies were like that, quarantined to each website. Its insane that it hasnt been like that for this long
Well, they were already quarantined to each website, but if that same website got embedded in half of all websites, that still enables a lot of tracking. So now they're also quarantined to each website and the website it's embedded in, if any.
Another Firefox W
June 14, 2022
Updated Aug. 28, 2024
That's great, but what's the update? The Lemmy cross-posts from two years ago have the same title.
update: I read the post and the last paragraph talks about the full blocking of third-party cookies as a thing that's "starting in 2024" (future tense). So my best guess is it's that, but whatever the August 28th update was could have cleared all this up.
So the update is, Firefox now blocks all third party cookies by default?
That's great and new news... I just wish this post reflected that, so I wouldn't have to dig through comments to figure out what changed between 2022 and today.
I was confused enough when they initially announced Total Cookie Protection in 2021 and then re-announced it as rolled out to all users in 2022.
I think that's what it is, except my use of the term "block" was mostly wrong. This seems to accept them but keep them isolated, defeating their effectiveness as a way to track users across sites.
I don't think it's anyone's fault for being confused or misinterpreting what's in the article, because even Mozilla calls it blocking:
And starting in 2024, all our users can look forward to Firefox blocking even more third party cookies.
The linked page is even more confusing, because it provides a link back to this page for clarification about which third party cookies are being blocked.
That's today!
Updated Aug. 28, 2024.
Still waiting for it on mobile
It's there on mobile. Check the details tab in tracking protection. You should see it mentioned there.
Well shit! How long has that been there? I still use Firefox (ok, Librewolf and Mull) but I had given up on ever seeing that on mobile.
It's been here since more than a year. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/firefox-androids-new-privacy-feature-total-cookie-protection-stops-companies-from-keeping-tabs-on-your-moves/
Agreed. It's desperately needed on mobile
Apparently that finally happened while we weren't looking. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/firefox-androids-new-privacy-feature-total-cookie-protection-stops-companies-from-keeping-tabs-on-your-moves/
@Delusion6903 @bitwolf Firefox still has some ad features you have to find and turn off, don't know how to do this on Firefox for Android
https://blog.zgp.org/turn-off-advertising-features-in-firefox/
I'm actually using Mull so I'm thinking this is pretty well covered
Double upvote
Nononoooo! You gotta triple because double makes it neutral!