[HN Gopher] Google Chrome to remove detailed cookie and site dat...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Google Chrome to remove detailed cookie and site data controls
        
       Author : giuliomagnifico
       Score  : 427 points
       Date   : 2021-09-03 18:29 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (lapcatsoftware.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (lapcatsoftware.com)
        
       | hpoe wrote:
       | This is part of a strategy to eliminate the openness of the web,
       | right now your client still has full view and control of the code
       | running on it in the browser to a certain degree.
       | 
       | Companies do not want this, this makes it possible to reverse
       | engineer their process, to view what they are doing, and
       | basically takes away control.
       | 
       | They want a future where your browser is instead a portal to the
       | web where various companies just deliver black boxes of bytes to
       | your machine and you don't have visibility into the code that is
       | running, the actions they are performing or what is going on. In
       | such a world they control the platform the content and the
       | delivery mechanism.
       | 
       | Openness is contrary to the goals of these large companies
       | because that causes them to lose control.
        
         | nicce wrote:
         | I don't know why you are getting downvoted, but this is the
         | reality already. Maybe reasons behind are sometimes different,
         | but the end result is the same.
         | 
         | Google is rebuilding their Docs for using canvas only[1]. You
         | have no control over it.
         | 
         | Similar things are happening. Web assembly is getting more
         | popular, and in more cases browser is just a sandbox running
         | arbitrary code. E.g Microsoft has huge interest[2].
         | 
         | [1]: https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/05/Google-
         | Docs-...
         | 
         | [2]: https://www.infoworld.com/article/3613873/microsoft-gets-
         | ser...
        
       | SubiculumCode wrote:
       | "Don't be Evil"
       | 
       | he he he...almost forgot about them saying that. -posted from
       | Firefox.
        
       | edoceo wrote:
       | Damn. And we lost Servo just when it was getting close to being
       | not shitty. While everything else is moving towards more shitty.
        
         | octopoc wrote:
         | There is some activity in the donations:
         | 
         | https://crowdfunding.lfx.linuxfoundation.org/projects/servo
        
         | tomxor wrote:
         | We lost the servo team, but isn't servo complete enough to
         | simmer in maintenance?
        
           | kroltan wrote:
           | Not nearly complete enough if you want a browser.
           | 
           | MAYBE, if you want a browsing engine / "webview".
        
             | tomxor wrote:
             | Ahh, i'm talking about the surviving parts that were
             | adopted by Firefox:
             | 
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gecko_(software)#Quantum
             | 
             | I remember it clearly because Firefox got a big performance
             | boost in it's renderer when quantum was released, often
             | it's faster than Chrome.
        
             | zamadatix wrote:
             | That's exactly what Servo was/is, an embeddable browser
             | engine. It was never aiming to build a usable reference
             | servo browser with the engine. The packaged nightly
             | binaries were just to demo the current state of the
             | embeddable engine which is why they were so barebones.
        
               | kroltan wrote:
               | Yes, you're correct, but the ancestor comments kind of
               | implied it being a hope for browsers at large.
               | 
               | Bad phrasing from my part too, sorry.
        
           | dralley wrote:
           | No, not even close.
        
             | tomxor wrote:
             | Why not, It's in Firefox, I'm literally looking at it right
             | now.
        
               | kroltan wrote:
               | Some parts of Servo are in Firefox, but not the whole
               | thing.
               | 
               | Swapping your VW Beetle's wheels for a Ferrari's doesn't
               | make it a Ferrari! Even if it improves handling (or
               | whatever I'm not a car person, it's just an accessible
               | analogy)
        
         | downWidOutaFite wrote:
         | Not sure why you're saying Servo, we still have Firefox.
        
         | kelnos wrote:
         | Servo was never supposed to be a browser. It was a testbed for
         | new browser tech/components, some of which got ported into
         | Firefox. I had hopes that Servo would also be an embeddable
         | browser engine, but not sure if that was ever a serious goal.
         | 
         | Servo still exists and has been spun out of Mozilla's org
         | (https://github.com/servo/servo/). Certainly development will
         | be slower without a dedicated, paid team behind it, but it's
         | still alive (last merge to master was 9 days ago). And perhaps
         | without Mozilla's direct control, it will actually end up
         | becoming the browser you hoped it would be.
        
           | throw_m239339 wrote:
           | I give Firefox browser engine 5 years top before Mozilla
           | becomes Chromium based. Servo WAS meant to be the future had
           | Mozilla continued to fund its development, there is no way
           | around that fact. Yes, it was experimental, but so where
           | every other browser engines/forks when they started. Mozilla
           | lost a lot of goodwill when they fired Servo team and most of
           | the Rust developers.
        
             | drran wrote:
             | Why we need two Chrome's?
        
       | qutreM wrote:
       | Incremental changes toward a shitty browser.
        
       | cptskippy wrote:
       | So why do developers still use Chrome?
        
         | x0x0 wrote:
         | I have access to browser stats for a b2b saas. The majority of
         | our customers use chrome for the app. Approx 70% chrome, 28%
         | chromium, 2% safari (almost entirely mobile). NB: we discourage
         | mobile or you'd see more ios; the main site is approx 50%
         | safari (of that, > 95% mobile).
         | 
         | Last time I looked, only one person had used firefox in the
         | trailing 3 months.
        
       | rdiddly wrote:
       | Are we even sure what the final page is going to look like?
       | "We're deprecating the old one" doesn't necessarily mean "We're
       | finished building the new one."
        
       | bronlund wrote:
       | If you move the letters G (Google) and C (Chrome) two letters
       | down the alphabet, you get IE.
        
       | staticassertion wrote:
       | Seems like there should be a bug report to include more detailed
       | information on the new page.
        
         | dylan604 wrote:
         | Closed, won't fix
        
       | melbourne_mat wrote:
       | I'm privacy conscious but would not consider looking at such
       | detailed information. For me it's delete all site state on exit.
       | Do people actually look at this stuff?
        
         | RedComet wrote:
         | I do.
        
           | alisonkisk wrote:
           | What's one interesting thing you've seen that isn't better
           | displayed in Dev Tools?
        
         | james-skemp wrote:
         | Developer bias, but being able to delete individual cookies is
         | invaluable.
         | 
         | Non-developer hat: PlayStation Network store also had a bug
         | where you'd be logged in, but unable to buy anything. Instead
         | of deleting all data you could delete one cookie and it would
         | temporarily resolve the issue.
        
           | bushbaba wrote:
           | I always just used incognito windows for these kinds of
           | issues.
        
           | burnished wrote:
           | I don't really interact with cookies at all. What are your
           | uses cases? What is the value? If you're so enthused with it
           | I'm wondering if I should be, basically.
        
           | drewg123 wrote:
           | We have a bug like that in our internal systems at work. If I
           | can't delete an individual cookie, I'll switch to firefox for
           | work stuff. (I currently use chrome for work stuff b/c we
           | have some helpful extensions which are chrome only)
        
           | dangrossman wrote:
           | I've run into that bug (I think) on lots of sites, including
           | two of my credit card issuers. They set so many cookies, and
           | new ones on every visit, with long expirations, until the
           | cookie header is so large that either the browser or server
           | is cutting it off and you can't pick up the cookies to log in
           | any more. I go wipe out some cookies to fix that too.
        
           | ratata wrote:
           | Just fyi, you can delete individual cookies in the developer
           | tools.
        
             | bigwavedave wrote:
             | > Just fyi, you can delete individual cookies in the
             | developer tools.
             | 
             | While I very much agree with the point you're making, I can
             | count on one hand (with fingers to spare) the number of
             | family members I have who know what the developer tools
             | even are, and that's because I showed them when
             | troubleshooting an issue they were having. They aren't
             | going to learn or remember how to access the dev tools to
             | manage cookies, but they do know what it means to delete
             | individual cookies and the current process to do so, and if
             | they forget the exact steps they could certainly figure it
             | out in settings/preferences.
             | 
             | What they're not going to do is think "well, I can't find
             | the thing I used to use to deal with cookies, I'd better go
             | muck around in the developer tools." I'd imagine a very
             | large percentage of non-technical people who have heard
             | about cookies fall into the same category as my relatives,
             | but that's my own bias talking and YMMV of course.
        
               | shock-value wrote:
               | I have never known anyone to need to delete an individual
               | cookie vs all for a site. Certainly I've never needed
               | that.
               | 
               | Only time I have (probably ever) deleted an individual
               | cookie was for testing during development, and in those
               | cases I already use the dev tools to do so.
        
               | BHSPitMonkey wrote:
               | If they're a non-developer, the ability to clear all of
               | the cookies (or data) for a given site should be adequate
               | to cover their needs (and if they're a developer,
               | obviously they'll just use Developer Tools > Application
               | for individual cookie manipulation).
               | 
               | If a non-developer is in a situation where they need to
               | delete a single cookie by name but deleting _all_ of that
               | site's cookies would be ruinous for some reason, then
               | something's horribly wrong.
        
               | nett18 wrote:
               | Read the parent answer, it explains when deleting
               | individual cookies is useful (even for non-devs)
        
             | dredmorbius wrote:
             | Which Does Not Exist On Mobile.
             | 
             | (90% or more of most sites' organic web traffic is mobile.)
        
         | rapnie wrote:
         | I use FF, uBlock and Privacy Badger. Of those - while uBlock is
         | most powerful - I value Privacy Badger the most. It shows me
         | 'number of cookies' in the toolbar icon on every page, and in
         | the dropdown I can quickly toggle any 'suspicious' domains to
         | be blocked. Only much less often do I take the time to do more
         | intricate stuff using uBlock Origin.
        
         | sixothree wrote:
         | Absolutely. I delete specific cookies regularly.
        
           | BHSPitMonkey wrote:
           | Through this UI? What's wrong with using Developer Tools for
           | this?
        
         | simfoo wrote:
         | Not just on exit - cookie autodelete is awesome. 10s after I
         | switch site all past cookies are gone
        
         | yellow_lead wrote:
         | I've looked at it before - to delete a specific cookie, or see
         | what a website has stored. Deleting specific cookies can
         | sometimes fix broken websites.
        
           | BHSPitMonkey wrote:
           | What's the intersection of "users who want to delete a
           | specific cookie" and "users who cannot open Developer Tools"?
           | For the average user, deleting all of a site's cookies seems
           | like all the granularity you need (and will be a more
           | effective troubleshooting tactic anyway).
        
             | shock-value wrote:
             | Effectively zero. Ridiculous that anyone would think this
             | an issue even worth discussing.
        
       | zmmmmm wrote:
       | We're getting into the scary space now where it's becoming
       | feasible for sites to insist on Chrome and drop support for other
       | browsers. I've hit two such apps in the last month where not only
       | did the app not work on FireFox, but the experience was
       | completely broken (blank page, etc). So they aren't even
       | bothering with enough testing to put up a "please use chrome"
       | message.
       | 
       | I use FireFox for everything personal and Chrome for development.
       | I'd encourage others to do the same. Apart from expressing a
       | "vote" for web standards and interoperability, it also ensures
       | that by default you are separating personal from work / dev which
       | makes things a lot easier when you want to nuke all your browser
       | settings / cache / cookies etc.
        
         | intricatedetail wrote:
         | I worked on a project that a company decided to be Chrome only.
         | This was during times when IE was still popular. We were
         | spending a lot of time on cross browser compatibility and at
         | one point the start-up didn't have money to spend on that. We
         | picked Chrome as at the time offered best performance and it
         | was fairly easy to make the app look as intended. We had to
         | help some customers install Chrome and after that we had
         | amazing velocity and we could focus on features rather than
         | worrying why some customers can't see something etc.
        
           | zmmmmm wrote:
           | This is the slippery slope we're on. You only have to get a
           | little bit down the pathway of the dominant browser departing
           | from standards and the cost of maintaining cross
           | compatibility goes up exponentially. Your experience is
           | absolutely real and it's actually the reason why we have to
           | be vigilant not to get in that state in the first place.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | the_other wrote:
         | I ONLY use Chrome when x-browser testing. I browse in Safari
         | and develop and test in FF first. If anyone else's site or app
         | doesn't work in Safari or FF, they lose me as a user/customer.
        
         | munro wrote:
         | Same, I switched to FireFox recently as well. Lol if they think
         | they can make these changes, and remain dominant (speaking
         | Apple as well), then they should look at what happened to
         | Freenode. Personally, I'm really just lazy, but I can go back
         | to compiling my own Linux distros if it means I can control my
         | system.
        
         | echelon wrote:
         | Demand the break up of Google! Now!
         | 
         | Email your reps.
         | 
         | Tell them this is dangerous and that Google shouldn't be
         | allowed to run the entire web. Take chrome away!
        
           | warning26 wrote:
           | The issue here is that "making a web browser" isn't a
           | sustainable business. You could force Google to spin off
           | Chrome...and then what? The new "Chrome Inc." would probably
           | need to either start integrating ads or start charging money
           | to even have a chance at not immediately going under.
           | 
           | The only reason Firefox is even able to exist is Google
           | propping them up with lots of extra money.
        
         | prox wrote:
         | If someone says they are a developer but do not test other
         | browsers I don't take them very seriously as a developer at
         | all.
         | 
         | I wholeheartedly think it's a good idea to split browsers
         | between work and personal just so to get familiar with other
         | browsers.
        
       | forgotmypw17 wrote:
       | As of today, my main workstation is an "early 2008" iMac, at El
       | Capitan and Chrome maxed out at 83.x...
       | 
       | In addition to Chrome, I'm using six other browsers which work
       | well with HN, my own sites, fb, gmail, ...
       | 
       | I think in today's Web we've achieved an incredible level of
       | compatibility, interoperability, and accessibility.
       | 
       | Are there many sites which don't work across 25 years or 15 years
       | or even 5 years worth of client software? Sure, but...
       | 
       | There are also restaurants I don't go to, roads I don't walk
       | down, and people I don't associate with...
       | 
       | When a site tells me my browser is not good enough, I just turn
       | around and stop visiting, e.g. twitter, reddit, imgur...
       | 
       | The Web is better than ever for me, thanks to this strategy. I've
       | heard it called boundaries and self-respect.
       | 
       | --
       | 
       | Written on a 2012 iPad mini with iOS 9.x Safari.
        
         | chrononaut wrote:
         | Are you not worried about security vulnerabilities?
        
           | forgotmypw17 wrote:
           | From where?
        
           | Sunspark wrote:
           | Speaking for myself here, no. It's not actually that easy to
           | just "own" people randomly through their browser or network
           | connection. First you have to be malicious, then you have to
           | get them to engage with you directly, then you have to be
           | skilled enough to have code ready to go for their specific
           | circumstances.
           | 
           | Most of the sites I visit are normal ones like HN. The ones
           | that are not, there's only so much malware an advertising
           | network can stuff in when ublock is present.
        
         | blacksmith_tb wrote:
         | It's laudable to keep old hardware in service, but there are a
         | lot of serious security issues with such old versions of the
         | browsers. If that machine is your only option, I personally
         | would install Ubuntu on it, which would get you current
         | versions of Firefox and Chrome (but of course wouldn't run OSX
         | apps you may depend on).
        
       | jacquesm wrote:
       | They are really on a roll there, how many user hostile moves is
       | that in the last 30 days? I think I lost count at 4. And all in
       | the name of 'helping our users to improve their experience'.
       | Since when is removing features that users depend on a positive?
       | 
       | But with the competition as good as dead they can do whatever
       | they want: the bulk of the audience is now captive and has lost
       | either the willpower or the means to attempt to escape.
       | 
       | It's about time we reboot this web thing.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | hughrr wrote:
         | Back to Gopher!
        
         | decremental wrote:
         | Look around you. Does it seem like doing bad things that some
         | people have a problem with is some of kind impedes? There is
         | always an overwhelming majority of people who don't care. That
         | is their power. It's not going away.
        
           | jraph wrote:
           | > people who don't care
           | 
           | You cannot care if you are not aware. It is a complicated
           | matter which looks very abstract when you haven't had a
           | chance to look into it and think.
           | 
           | And then, some are aware and really don't care. But at least
           | it is a conscious choice.
        
         | deadbunny wrote:
         | > But with the competition as good as dead they can do whatever
         | they want
         | 
         | Firefox works well enough for me.
        
           | SomeBoolshit wrote:
           | They've taken away user control over cookies per site years
           | ago.
           | 
           | People complained, Mozilla ignored the complaints and somehow
           | this all just blew over because of browser extensions against
           | tracking cookies.
           | 
           | There's still no replacement for the "ask me every time"
           | cookie dialog.
        
             | jonnycomputer wrote:
             | Yes. But you can see it all in developer tools. Just not as
             | accessible. At least when you are on that site. Which is a
             | limitation for sure.
        
           | Sunspark wrote:
           | Firefox in addition to user-friendly features, also has
           | containers which are an environment to isolate and manage
           | cookies. A noteworthy example being the facebook container:
           | https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-
           | cont...
           | 
           | Linking here to a previous discussion on Firefox containers:
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28353876
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | magicalist wrote:
         | "how many user hostile moves is that in the last 30 days" seems
         | a bit much for something that they are "planning on
         | deprecating". It's not even clear if "making
         | chrome://settings/content/all the place to manage storage"
         | doesn't just mean everything is just going to move from two
         | pages to one but have the same functionality.
        
         | thih9 wrote:
         | > Since when is removing features that users depend on a
         | positive?
         | 
         | Most google chrome users aren't techincal users; they aren't
         | familiar with cookie data controls and won't care if they're
         | gone.
         | 
         | Google consistently drops technical features in the name of
         | improving or simplifying UX for most of their userbase (in a
         | way that's aligned with google's interests). This happens since
         | the beginning of Chrome (merging the address bar and search bar
         | seems like that to me); This approach is present in other
         | google products too (e.g. it's harder than ever to override
         | defaults in google search).
        
         | firebaze wrote:
         | Just sell your google stock in the next few months. I wonder
         | why Microsoft doesn't sue Google, they're repeating the
         | Internet Explorer story almost step-by-step.
        
           | SquareWheel wrote:
           | They've abandoned their browser for five years until it
           | stagnated, slowing progress on the web for all?
        
         | jraph wrote:
         | > the bulk of the audience is now captive
         | 
         | And they don't know it for the most part. People not into
         | computers don't realize what is going on. Sadly, many people
         | into computers don't really care neither.
         | 
         | I still try to speak about privacy and why I think we should
         | care when natural in the conversation with people who are
         | likely to be interested. Often, people actually show interest,
         | especially if you take their perspective in account.
        
       | dessant wrote:
       | Looking forward to a Google employee lecturing us about how users
       | don't care about these details and how people don't want granular
       | control over site data.
        
         | BHSPitMonkey wrote:
         | Not a Google employee, but yes - users absolutely do not care
         | about manipulating individual cookie key/value pairs (and if
         | they did, they would be web developers and know how to open
         | Developer Tools).
        
         | quaintdev wrote:
         | Of course an average user does not bother about these controls.
         | They don't even need to know what cookies are. Maybe they don't
         | care today but now you are not even giving them opportunity to
         | learn and take control back.
         | 
         | The argument that no one uses it is just a front. Real reason
         | is it serves in Google's interest to remove these and that is
         | why they are doing it. Just like GTalk and RSS.
        
           | BHSPitMonkey wrote:
           | Why, in your view, does there NEED to be two UIs in the same
           | application serving the same purpose?
        
         | johncena33 wrote:
         | Just out of curiosity, what's the percentage of users outside
         | of devs do you think care about this feature?
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | loosescrews wrote:
       | Is it possible that they are combining the pages and will still
       | have the same functionality? I personally find it very confusing
       | that Chrome has two different pages for managing cookies. I
       | pretty much always want the manage individual cookies page, but
       | each time I find the other page first which only lets me clear
       | all cookies and have to track down the page I really want.
        
       | tehwebguy wrote:
       | > By the way, before anyone runs off and yells "Switch to Safari"
       | or something like that, keep in mind that Safari is actually in a
       | worse state and doesn't have detailed cookie and site information
       | at all.
       | 
       | It does, but it's split between two places. You can see a list of
       | all sites that have stored data in Preferences > Privacy > Manage
       | Website Data... (no option to view here, just delete).
       | 
       | You can also navigate to the site in the browser and then view
       | the detailed data:
       | 
       | - Check "Show Develop menu in menu bar" in Preferences > Advanced
       | 
       | - Develop > Show Web Inspector
       | 
       | - Navigate to the Storage tab
       | 
       | On the left you'll see options for Cookies, Local Storage &
       | Session Storage.
        
         | samizdis wrote:
         | > You can also navigate to the site in the browser and then
         | view the detailed data
         | 
         | The author addresses this point (or has now addressed it) in
         | the addendum to point out an "observer effect" shortcoming:
         | 
         |  _This information can be seen with the web inspector in both
         | Chrome and Safari.
         | 
         | Yes, but the crucial difference is that you have to navigate to
         | an individual site in a browser window in order to see the site
         | data in the web inspector. Whereas in the Preferences, you can
         | get to the site data, for every website, without having to load
         | the sites. And remember, the very act of loading a site can
         | make the site data change, so there's an "observer effect" if
         | you try to examine or delete it in the web inspector._
        
           | BoorishBears wrote:
           | Not that I think this has actually been applied by anyone in
           | the wild, but it'd be fun to make a site that take advantage
           | of this
           | 
           | You can detect developer tools being open in Chrome pretty
           | reliably, so detect dev tools have been open then "clean up
           | your act" before there's a chance to view anything of note
        
             | duskwuff wrote:
             | This has absolutely been used "in the wild". One
             | particularly nasty strain of ad-block-evasion scripts would
             | detect the developer tools being opened, and would reload
             | the page and disable most of its features to prevent them
             | from being analyzed.
        
               | BoorishBears wrote:
               | The ad-block thing is where I first saw it, that and DRM
               | for less-than-legal sites to prevent downloading (stops
               | streaming if the dev console is open)
               | 
               | I mean more specifically taking advantage of the awkward
               | UI to cover up your tracks on local storage, it's
               | something that's just devious enough that if you get
               | caught (which is not difficult) it'll be hard to explain
               | what you were doing, and you'll be trying to explain it
               | to technical people
        
               | sroussey wrote:
               | Way back when, we thought about this for Firebug. One
               | thing that came out of it was browsers started adding the
               | console object (also because devs forgot to remove the
               | calls on it).
               | 
               | Even so, we added CSS and stuff to highlight elements and
               | that was easily found.
               | 
               | What do people look for today?
        
               | duskwuff wrote:
               | The two big ones are:
               | 
               | 1. Watching window.innerHeight/innerWidth for sudden,
               | large decreases, indicating that the user just opened the
               | inspector.
               | 
               | 2. Logging objects to the console with toString methods
               | and checking if that method gets called.
        
             | codezero wrote:
             | Could you see the original cookie by inspecting the headers
             | of the network request? This would presumably be the value
             | before the page loads and gives access to document.cookie
             | or a change triggered by a server-side header.
        
               | sk5t wrote:
               | Consider using something like https://mitmproxy.org/ to
               | deal with a site so devious as to detect browser-level
               | tools being used to inspect headers/cookies/etc.
        
           | codezero wrote:
           | Not trying to defend anyone here, but I wonder if there's a
           | non-nefarious reason for this.
           | 
           | Specifically, there have been a lot of changes to cookies
           | lately because malicious actors (malware/adware) figured out
           | how to access the cookie store and infer/determine cookie
           | information from other sites.
           | 
           | I suspect that maybe this cookie store is kept in a more
           | secure part of the application and only the cookies relevant
           | to the site you visit get pulled out of it. It may even be a
           | risk to have the information for all domains even loaded into
           | memory for the application.
           | 
           | With all that said, there should be some way to
           | manage/introspect that cookie store from outside of the
           | browser imho.
        
             | wyager wrote:
             | If the browser is designed properly (this does not apply to
             | Safari), the UI can and should have totally different
             | permissions from the site executor/renderer.
        
               | dylan604 wrote:
               | >If the browser is designed properly (this does not apply
               | to Safari),
               | 
               | Slow clap. Well done.
        
             | feanaro wrote:
             | Let's remain serious. It is entirely within the capability
             | of modern computers to admit a dialogue which would let the
             | user view their cookies without magically exposing them to
             | websites. There is no non-nefarious reason for this.
        
         | Kiro wrote:
         | Same for Chrome so not sure what this article is about.
        
           | DangitBobby wrote:
           | The article is quite clear. The question is, why did they go
           | backwards on functionality. They took a simple user interface
           | and removed a single useful feature from it, and what remains
           | is a much more tedious way to do the same thing. Why? What
           | was the benefit? The author speculates that it's to make user
           | cookie control more difficult.
        
             | shock-value wrote:
             | The reason was probably that no one ever needs to delete
             | just a subset of cookies from a site. I certainly never
             | have, and I'm a pretty technically-minded user. (Other than
             | for development, in which case I'm using dev tools anyway.)
        
               | IIsi50MHz wrote:
               | Counterpoint: I've many times had to fix presentation of
               | or access to a site by purging just specific cookies. Two
               | sites that have previously had these problems are
               | RingCentral's web interface and AutoTask. Maybe a dozen
               | or more others, but admittedly not many...however, when
               | I've needed it, the problem has been persistent,
               | requiring multiple fixes per day, over a few consecutive
               | days or or even a couple weeks.
        
               | SquareWheel wrote:
               | Needing to delete specific cookies does arise
               | occasionally, and we have dev tools or the cookie viewer
               | under the lock for that.
               | 
               | However, needing to delete those cookies without first
               | viewing the page due to side effects - that is a very
               | niche use case.
        
         | gsich wrote:
         | Why Safari? The only sane choice is Firefox.
        
           | kortex wrote:
           | Or Brave. Safari gives me too many issues. Brave has all the
           | compatibility you'd expect from chromium.
        
             | techrat wrote:
             | Brave is just a shitcoin mining, referral link hijacking
             | reskin of Chrome.
        
               | brnt wrote:
               | By default it doesnt, and although I'd certainly advise
               | going over all Brave's settings once, then you have the
               | safest (as in not outdated like some other privacy forks)
               | and privacy respecting Chrome based browser around.
        
               | m0zg wrote:
               | They also run the only decent, independent search engine
               | that has _its own_, _uncensored_ index. DDG was
               | perceptibly worse than Google, but Brave Search is about
               | on par, and the latency seems to be better as well. I
               | maybe have to go to Google once or twice a month now
               | instead of several times a day DDG would require. I know
               | a bit about Google search, and frankly I'm stunned by
               | what Brave was able to pull off here.
               | 
               | I'm actually not against Firefox either, but they refuse
               | to implement a profile switcher, and I need one to be
               | able to fully and unambiguously isolate my work and
               | personal accounts. What's particularly grating is that
               | they already have profile support. Just not the UX to
               | switch the profiles without pain.
        
               | techrat wrote:
               | Stop drinking the kool aid, buh.
               | 
               | If you have to go over the settings... A safe, privacy
               | respecting browser wouldn't resort to any shady tactics
               | in the first place.
        
               | brnt wrote:
               | I'm not drinking any koolaid, I just have not found
               | anything better, apart from Firefox.
        
             | gsich wrote:
             | If Brave is keeping Chromium updated, then it is possible
             | that this will effect them also.
        
         | officeplant wrote:
         | From the blog it sounds like Chrome's will be in a similar
         | state after the update. Just another thing I'll have to
         | navigate to in a tedious manner.
        
         | xqyf wrote:
         | Sure, both browsers have developer tools. This is much more
         | opaque than a Settings menu.
        
         | a3n wrote:
         | What a weird design. Listing and viewing would often be done
         | when you want to "clean things up, but not everything.
         | 
         | Disclosure: never used or saw safari, and i don't have a mac,
         | nor the mac nature.
        
       | butz wrote:
       | We're coming up to times where websites are encrypted binary
       | blobs and only browser who can open them is Chrome. And you have
       | to provide your personal data, to access them, of course.
        
       | arathore wrote:
       | It's not even a niche use cases, many times IT teams would
       | suggest deleting the cookies and cache for a specific site to
       | overcome common login issues.
        
       | alisonkisk wrote:
       | The ranting in this post's HN comments is ridiculous.
       | 
       | If you don't trust a site, delete its content or block it. It's
       | not an invasion of your privacy because the UI doesn't let you
       | pick apart the individual bits of encoded gobbledygook in the
       | cookies.
       | 
       | You need Dev Tools to make sense of cookies, and Chief provides
       | that.
        
       | londons_explore wrote:
       | How many users are there who want to delete some but not all
       | cookies for a site, yet aren't able to use the F12 developer
       | tools to do so?
       | 
       | I can see some users delete cookies to prevent tracking, but
       | should those users really be deciding which cookies to keep and
       | which to delete when nearly all cookies have very user unfriendly
       | names and data contents?
       | 
       | Given that, I agree with the Chrome team here. There shouldn't be
       | a general-public UI to manipulate individual cookies, since
       | making a mistake is very likely and leaks the user's private
       | info. Power users can use the F12 tools.
        
         | indymike wrote:
         | > There shouldn't be a general-public UI to manipulate
         | individual cookies, since making a mistake is very likely and
         | leaks the user's private info. Power users can use the F12
         | tools
         | 
         | Um, I'm pretty sure deleting a cookie or too isn't going to
         | leak my private data. If it does, it is because some third
         | party website defaults to doing the stupidest thing possible.
        
       | phone8675309 wrote:
       | Sounds like Chrome is moving more toward being a surveillance
       | tool and ad delivery platform that also browses the web (well,
       | more than it is right now anyway).
        
         | minikites wrote:
         | That's what happens when a browser made by an advertising
         | company becomes dominant.
        
         | booi wrote:
         | It's more and more obvious we need competition in the browser
         | space. Firefox as an excellent and performant alternative.
         | Personally I use Chrome for work and Firefox for personal
         | stuff.
        
           | coldacid wrote:
           | Firefox, and the Mozilla organization itself, has its own
           | fair share of issues.
           | 
           | I really wish more people would look at and help develop
           | NetSurf[0] or other lightweight browsers with their own
           | layout engines More importantly, I wish that regular users
           | would stop going with the 900 pound Chromium/Blink gorilla,
           | and instead use a greater variety of browsers/engines. This
           | browser monoculture is just pure death.
           | 
           | [0]: https://www.netsurf-browser.org/
        
           | gaoshan wrote:
           | I've had decent luck with Vivaldi lately.
        
             | nicce wrote:
             | Please note, that it is Chromium based as well.
        
           | vimy wrote:
           | Why not use Edge if you need to use a chromium based browser?
        
             | krono wrote:
             | It's like Chrome, but better in pretty much every way.
             | Never thought I'd say this but Edge is actually pretty
             | good!
             | 
             | Very frequent and large feature updates, deepening
             | ecosystem integration that uncharacteristically doesn't get
             | the way if you don't use it.
             | 
             | I always get a bit anxious when one of these massive
             | enterprises suddenly gets up and starts moving with
             | newfound focus, and MS is pretty much sprinting on Adderall
             | at this point.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | core-e wrote:
           | Do other Chromium based browsers like Brave count? Or do they
           | need be completely separate browser architectures like
           | Firefox and Opera?
        
             | MiddleEndian wrote:
             | Opera uses Chromium nowadays.
        
         | sebow wrote:
         | Google has being a surveillance tool since it's inception, they
         | cannot work without accumulating and/or embedding people's
         | data.
        
         | AJ007 wrote:
         | It's been that way since they forced logged you in on Chrome
         | whenever you logged in to any Google website.
        
       | Ajedi32 wrote:
       | Seems reasonable. If you want detailed information about the
       | contents of individual cookies that's what developer tools are
       | for. A simple "clear data" button seems far more usable for
       | normal users.
        
       | NVHacker wrote:
       | Anyone still uses Chrome for personal stuff ?
        
         | travoc wrote:
         | No, my household has shifted everything to Brave or Safari with
         | AdGuard.
        
           | nicce wrote:
           | Brave is also developed by yet another ad based company, and
           | is also Chromium based.
           | 
           | I'm not so sure if grass is greener on this site, as the
           | money always decides in the end.
        
       | 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
       | "As far as I know, there's been no public discussion of this
       | change, and Google employees may have accidentally leaked the
       | information to me in my innocuous bug report."
       | 
       | There are constant changes to Chrome and these get pushed out in
       | "updates" to selected groups of users, aka "Field Trials". I have
       | never seen any public discussion of any of these changes prior to
       | including them in automatic updates. What makes this change to
       | user control over site data any different. In fact, I can recall
       | years ago Chrome used to let users change Javascript and Cookies
       | settings on a global or per site basis, and from the Address Bar
       | not only a "Settings" page. Then, without any discussion or
       | debate amongst end users, Google changed Chrome. (Note Javascript
       | is needed to store site data via "LocalStorage".) Today, in
       | "Guest mode" on a Chromebook, it's impossible for the user to
       | disable Javascript or Cookies globally in Chrome. Being logged in
       | to the Chromebook is a prerequisite for globally disabling
       | Javascript or Cookies. There is never debate on these design
       | decisions. These are dark patterns. How effective are user
       | complaints at influencing Chrome development. Please cite
       | evidence. Perhaps what we need are user-controlled solutions.
       | 
       | Side note: I can remember a time when it was considered a
       | monumental task to get the entire web-using population to
       | download a new/updated web browser. Almost like a flag day.
       | Today, there is no need for a campaign to get users to "install
       | the latest version of [web browser]." The concept of automating
       | updates is great, but I am not a fan of today's software using
       | "automatic updates" because the way in which developers are using
       | it is user-hostile.
       | 
       | "In my opinion, this change is very unwelcome. It takes away a
       | lot of information and control from the user. For what benefit?"
       | 
       | BEGIN Devil's advocate/"Google's advocate"
       | 
       | Since this is "the orange site", usually it begins with something
       | like, "Googler here. Opinions are my own not Google's."
       | 
       | Our confidential studies show that individuals like the blog
       | author comprise a minority of Chrome users. The majority of users
       | are not aware of such "issues"; they do not publish blogs or give
       | feedback to Google. By all accounts the majority remain satisfied
       | with Chrome as they are not switching to alternatives. We have
       | dominant market share. Our focus is on delivering the best
       | experience for users. Lucky for us, this also happens to be the
       | best experience for our customers, advertisers, and therefore the
       | best outcome for Google. Its win-win-win. It would not be an
       | efficient use of our limited resources to offer a version of the
       | Chrome browser (e.g., field trial) that met the requirements of
       | this blog author, but failed to meet the evolving requirements of
       | Google. Altough we provide free services to our users, we are a
       | business not a charity. If we fail, then the entire world
       | suffers. However we are continually experimenting with
       | improvements to the browser, e.g., based on lawsuits that
       | governments file against us, and we are testing them on various
       | segments of our user base, without needing the user's prior
       | approval for every update. We believe this is the best use of
       | Google's limited resources.
       | 
       | END Devil's advocate/Google's advocate
       | 
       | The orange site commenter's task should be to refute the Google
       | advocate (or defend it). Or even better, give us a more
       | entertaining/thought-provoking Devil's advocate. A fundamental
       | rule of negotiation is that if one can understand the other
       | side's arguments, then she will be far more effective at
       | advancing her own arguments. ("It's difficult to determine
       | Google's motivation for this change." Maybe that's intentional.
       | Maybe Google does not want to open these decisions up for
       | "debate" or negotiation with those affected, i.e., end users.)
       | 
       | "I hope to spur a public debate about it and give some pushback
       | to Google before they make too much "progress" on the change in
       | Chrome."
       | 
       | Good luck. Can someone remind us when that has ever worked before
       | in bringing about changes by Google for the sole benefit of
       | users.
       | 
       | With Privacy Sandbox/FLOC, it appears that debate did stop _other
       | browsers_ from adopting it, but it did not stop Chrome from
       | adopting it.
       | 
       | The more interesting question IMO is what are the possible
       | solutions and how well do they work in practice. For example,
       | 
       | 1. Stop using Chrome
       | 
       | 2. Use some Chrome extension that "solves" the problem
       | 
       | 3. Complain about Chrome on a blog or in a forum and hope for the
       | best
       | 
       | Personally, I have chosen to control site data outside the
       | browser, using a forward proxy. The proxy software does not
       | automatically update itself, it does not run "field trials", and
       | it is not being sued by dozens of goverments. I do not have to
       | make complaints on a blog to try to influence its development.
       | Unlike a web browser from an online advertising funded entity, I
       | have reasonable control over the operation of the software.
       | Through the proxy I can control browsers like Chrome, including
       | headers such as cookies and clear-site-data
       | (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
       | US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Cl...). Nonetheless, I fully subscribe
       | to #1 as the current best solution.
        
       | SLWW wrote:
       | Firefox Nightly is a pretty good browser imho
       | 
       | Also it just so happens that there are extensions that allow you
       | detailed (read: raw and editable) cookie data for each website
       | you visit!
        
         | deathanatos wrote:
         | I use & love Firefox, too, but do note that the author's
         | criticism directly applies to it, too: AFAIK, FF will not show
         | you the individualized cookies, or all you to act on them
         | individually.
         | 
         | Now, as you say, you can download an extension (and indeed, I
         | do!), but I think there is some merit to it being in the base
         | app. (E.g., not having to trust an extension. But also, it's
         | part of _Firefox_ 's data, and FF should provide decent tooling
         | for itself.)
        
           | prox wrote:
           | I don't think so, but can't test right now, pretty sure I
           | deleted cookies and a cache for one particular domain
           | recently.
        
             | Sebguer wrote:
             | The chrome change doesn't stop you from being able to
             | delete cookies and cache for individual domains, it's the
             | ability to inspect _specific cookies_.
        
           | acabal wrote:
           | That data is available in the developer tools, under the
           | Storage tab. Individual cookies can be viewed, edited, and
           | deleted. Not very useful for the average user, but the option
           | is there and I doubt the average user even knows what cookies
           | are, except that they're something you constantly have to
           | click "yes" to nowadays.
        
           | yborg wrote:
           | Firefox used to show individual site cookies in the Manage
           | Data dialog, this was removed at some point.
        
             | kenhwang wrote:
             | I'm running the latest developer build and it still has
             | this. It only shows number of cookies by domain and allows
             | deletion by domain, and you'd have to use dev tools if you
             | wanted to look at or delete a single individual cookie.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | cpmsmith wrote:
         | You don't even need extensions, that's available in the stock
         | developer tools. Though you have to be on the site at the time
         | to access it.
        
       | notatoad wrote:
       | i typically access this information by clicking the lock icon in
       | the URL bar. is that going away too, or just the version in the
       | settings page (which i didn't know existed until now)
        
       | sschueller wrote:
       | What the hell happened to Google? Who are these complete idiots
       | running the show?
        
         | edoceo wrote:
         | You may have forgotten: Cash rules everything around me. CREAM!
         | Get the money man! Dolla dolla bill y'all.
         | 
         | Wu-Tang is forever.
        
           | sumtechguy wrote:
           | That is the rub though. The dialog to do this is basically
           | 'done'. This means someone spent time and money to make this
           | 'go away'? Why? Just leave it be seams reasonable?...
        
             | coldacid wrote:
             | Because Google figures, and they're probably correct, that
             | removing it would prevent the average luser from even
             | considering that they could take these privacy-friendly
             | steps in the first place, which ends up putting more money
             | in Google's pockets from the advertisers.
        
         | micromacrofoot wrote:
         | when you've eaten everything you've got no choice but to start
         | eating yourself
        
         | da_chicken wrote:
         | The same idiots looking ad and data mining revenue, and then
         | seeing what their customer's demands are.
         | 
         | Their customers being the ones who are buying services from
         | Google.
         | 
         | Not you.
         | 
         | You're the _product_.
        
           | beerandt wrote:
           | Tired of this excuse.
           | 
           | If the audience is the product, Google still has an interest
           | in selling a quality product. That means not running off more
           | and more of the most tech savvy "product" segment.
        
             | brezelgoring wrote:
             | "Tech savvy" and "not tech savvy" are just 2 of hundreds if
             | not thousands of tags put in your info, to steer it into
             | the proper SALE buckets.
             | 
             | The 'you are the product' adage is true, but there isn't a
             | single quality you can have that makes you stand out from
             | thousands if not millions of others. Advertising is a
             | numbers game for them.
        
               | beerandt wrote:
               | Yeah, but there's an interest in keeping those numbers
               | around, and they have a disproportionate influence.
               | 
               | Who does grandma or cousin Bob call to "fix" their
               | computer? Who's controlling what browsers get installed
               | on corporate networks and at elementary schools? Or
               | picking the online class systems (and compatible
               | browsers) at universities?
               | 
               | They run off more than the one segment they piss off.
        
             | ComputerGuru wrote:
             | > If the audience is the product, Google still has an
             | interest in selling a quality product.
             | 
             | Not if they are the only ones left in the game.
             | 
             | Under Google's tutelage, the scope and complexity of the
             | web has grown to where it's near impossible to create an
             | alternative from scratch.
        
             | throw_m239339 wrote:
             | The advertisers are the customers, your data is the
             | product.
        
             | da_chicken wrote:
             | > Tired of this excuse.
             | 
             | When it stops being true, it will stop being trotted out as
             | the explanation for why Google keeps making their browser
             | better for their ad revenue business.
             | 
             | > If the audience is the product, Google still has an
             | interest in selling a quality product. That means not
             | running off more and more of the most tech savvy "product"
             | segment.
             | 
             | Why do you think the most tech savvy segment is the target
             | audience? Do you have any idea how many advertising dollars
             | there are in the 12-17 and 18-24 brackets?
        
               | beerandt wrote:
               | >Why do you think the most tech savvy segment is the
               | target audience?
               | 
               | Tech savvy doesn't equal hn users.
               | 
               | You think teenagers and college kids aren't using ad
               | blockers or selectively clearing browser history?
               | 
               | There are tech savvy users across all marketing
               | demographics.
               | 
               | >When it stops being true, it will stop being trotted out
               | as the explanation
               | 
               | It's not really an explanation, though. It's a half-baked
               | observation.
               | 
               | Movie theaters make money on concessions, but need the
               | good movies to draw a crowd.
               | 
               | Dealerships make their money on service, but still need
               | to sell cars to get that customer base.
               | 
               | Even if it's true by some skewed definition, it's mostly
               | irrelevant.
               | 
               | It implies that it doesn't matter what they do to users,
               | and have no interest in keeping them satisfied, and
               | that's false. They might want to increase ad business,
               | but that don't do that by allowing users to slowly
               | trickle to alternatives. Look at firefox's fall from the
               | top. There wasn't a breaking point, but a constant
               | trickle due to usability and performance.
        
             | dylan604 wrote:
             | >That means not running off more and more
             | 
             | Googs: Fine, where are you going to go instead?
             | 
             | FB: Fine, where are you going to go instead?
             | 
             | Insta: see above
             | 
             | Twit: see above
             | 
             | These people are just fine without the 10 devs that might
             | throw a hissy. (technically 9, because I have to count
             | myself)
        
             | nobody9999 wrote:
             | >If the audience is the product, Google still has an
             | interest in selling a quality product. That means not
             | running off more and more of the most tech savvy "product"
             | segment.
             | 
             | I'd say there's an argument to be made for pushing out the
             | tech savvy from using Chrome.
             | 
             | Compared to the total user base, those folks are a tiny
             | minority who often cause problems by complaining about
             | privacy invasions and develop/use privacy focused
             | extensions.
             | 
             | Why would Google want the small group of folks who draw
             | attention to and sometimes (gasp!) create extensions that
             | limit the ability of Google and Chrome to track/monitor the
             | product herds?
             | 
             | If the folks who actually have a clue as to what Google is
             | up to and how they're implementing it are driven away from
             | Chrome, there will be fewer folks implementing privacy and
             | related extensions for Chrome.
             | 
             | Anheuser-Busch doesn't care that a professional brewer is
             | unlikely to buy cases of Bud Light. In fact, I'm sure
             | they'd prefer they didn't, as that would likely invite
             | negative feedback from those folks.
             | 
             | Having a docile, uninformed pool of "product" to be sold to
             | advertisers gives Google the opportunity to implement more
             | and more tracking/advertising features into Chrome with
             | less pushback from the "product" is likely seen as an
             | unmitigated good by the rapacious and unethical scum who
             | want ever more tracking/monitoring in browser-based
             | interactions.
        
       | mark_l_watson wrote:
       | A bit off topic, but I frequently just delete all cookies on all
       | browsers on my devices. Since I just use Safari on
       | iOS/iPadOS/macOS and Chrome on Linux, this is such a quick thing
       | to do.
       | 
       | I also try to make using a private browser tab or page as my
       | normal way to do web browsing.
        
         | melbourne_mat wrote:
         | Agreed. Duck Duck browser on Android has a very prominent
         | "burn" button next to the URL bar which deletes everything.
         | It's great!
        
       | antisthenes wrote:
       | It's hard to tell from the article, but aren't detailed cookies
       | still available through dev tools?
        
         | grishka wrote:
         | You don't even need the dev tools -- you can view individual
         | cookies by clicking the lock icon in the address bar and then
         | "cookie settings".
        
           | antisthenes wrote:
           | Yeah, but if that's the case, then I'm completely lost about
           | what's getting removed from Chrome?
        
         | ehsankia wrote:
         | In my experience cookie control in Chrome have always sucked.
         | There's barebone support in dev tools but everyone time I've
         | wanted to do anything serious, I've always relied on more
         | powerful cookie editing extensions.
        
       | putlake wrote:
       | I regularly use site-specific controls, mostly for Javascript.
       | Let's hope Edge retains it.
        
       | foota wrote:
       | I don't get why people think this is a move with some agenda,
       | most likely they just don't think enough people use the single
       | cookie deletion functionality to warrant having it in the
       | settings vs the dev tools.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | BHSPitMonkey wrote:
         | The hyperbole in this thread is insane. I would wager that none
         | of the furious "this is pure evil!" commenters in this thread
         | even knew this particular settings page existed before today
         | (and I'd bet they still don't know the information is already
         | exposed in the URL bar).
         | 
         | Nobody who isn't a web developer is out there trying to guess
         | what individual cookie names/values mean or wants to delete
         | individual ones. At most, they just want to be able to clear
         | them per-site (or across the entire browser).
         | 
         | Anyone else will use the Developer Tools UI that's better
         | suited for the task.
        
           | jychang wrote:
           | Deleting cookies for a group of sites is essential, though,
           | and they're removing that.
           | 
           | Think facebook.com, fbcdn.net, etc.
           | 
           | I end up having to delete cookies for Cars.com every other
           | week, because sometimes the search function would corrupt
           | something and every page would return a blank white screen.
        
         | qutreM wrote:
         | Chrome in 10 years will be like a TV... all you will be able to
         | do is switch between a few hundred channels
        
           | SquareWheel wrote:
           | Browser dev tools are more powerful now than ever before, and
           | they're only a single key press away.
        
             | qutreM wrote:
             | Dev tools are next... same argument... not many people use
             | them.
        
               | SquareWheel wrote:
               | You can't have consumers without producers. Dev tools are
               | an integral tool to building websites and webapps today.
               | They're still receiving considerable investment from
               | browser vendors. I see new features in almost every
               | release.
        
         | feanaro wrote:
         | lol. Because it's such an unimaginable hassle having to keep
         | this code lying around in the codebase.
        
         | tyingq wrote:
         | Maybe it's changed, but walking a customer through clearing
         | some specific cookies was a common help desk thing. To deal
         | with shitty websites...PayPal had this problem for a long time
         | where you would get an obscure error until you manually cleared
         | a cookie.
         | 
         | This will be harder, especially where you need to clear cookies
         | on different domains like a login page, saml page, account
         | page, etc.
        
           | renewiltord wrote:
           | You had to clear one cookie on Paypal and leave the rest?
           | Jesus Christ, what a nightmare! Do you happen to recall what
           | situation that was? Just curious to read in a Daily WTF
           | sense, not challenging you to prove it.
        
             | tyingq wrote:
             | You could clear "all cookies for all sites", but that tends
             | to piss customers off, as pre-filled fields for many
             | websites are no longer pre-filled.
             | 
             | If I remember right, clearing it for one site didn't help
             | because clearing "login.paypal.com" cookies didn't clear
             | "some-other-thing.paypal.com" or "www.paypal.com". They
             | seem to use www.paypal.com for everything now.
             | 
             | Google for: "paypal Your browser sent a request that this
             | server could not understand" for one example
             | 
             | Or "paypal your last action could not be completed" for
             | another.
        
               | renewiltord wrote:
               | I googled for those and it's funny but sadly not as
               | entertaining as I'd hoped. All the responses involve
               | clearing all cookies for paypal.com at al.
               | 
               | > _If I remember right, clearing it for one site didn 't
               | help because clearing "login.paypal.com" cookies didn't
               | clear "some-other-thing.paypal.com" or "www.paypal.com".
               | They seem to use www.paypal.com for everything now._
               | 
               | Right, but that's not a problem that this particular
               | change is going to do anything about. Previously, you had
               | to find all the different paypal domains and whack their
               | cookies and now you have to do the same. The
               | functionality you can't do in the Preferences window now
               | (but you can in DevTools) is find a single cookie in a
               | single site and whack that one. _That 's_ the one that
               | would be Daily WTFy.
        
               | tyingq wrote:
               | Ah, got it. I read the screenshots as the "search" was
               | also going away. I do have that 'single cookie' thing
               | with another service where I have to delete one called
               | TICKET_something, but I'll fumble through it I suppose,
               | or use an extension.
        
               | renewiltord wrote:
               | I've mostly used this functionality to get my cookie out
               | for Phantombuster.
        
         | crazygringo wrote:
         | Exactly this. All the functionality is already built into
         | Chrome right here:
         | 
         | https://developer.chrome.com/docs/devtools/storage/cookies/
         | 
         | Contrary to the headline, Chrome _isn 't removing the ability
         | to do anything_ -- they're just removing it from the
         | _preferences_ interface, where I 'm not sure it really ever
         | made sense to include in the first place.
         | 
         | Truly, editing/deleting individual cookies isn't something any
         | regular user ever needs to do -- just clearing per-site, which
         | continues to exist in preferences.
        
           | feanaro wrote:
           | > where I'm not sure it really ever made sense to include in
           | the first place.
           | 
           | So move it somewhere where it makes more sense.
           | 
           | > Truly, editing/deleting individual cookies isn't something
           | any regular user ever needs to do
           | 
           | No true Scotsman? If the user needs to do this, they're
           | automatically not a regular user, or what?
           | 
           | Anyway, hard disagree.
        
           | canada_dry wrote:
           | > deleting individual cookies isn't something any regular
           | user ever needs to do
           | 
           | I disagree. A problem just recently with a gov site req'd you
           | delete their cookies to resolve it (as an interim solution
           | until they get around some year to fix the issue).
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | renewiltord wrote:
             | Right, so clear all the cookies for the gov site.
             | Previously you could do that and now you can do that.
             | Nothing has changed for this use case.
        
               | yccs27 wrote:
               | Settings vs dev tools does make a huge difference imo.
               | 
               | The settings pane gives you a cleaner ui for quick
               | changes (debatable, but I certainly feel this way). Dev
               | tools can break your browser if you do things wrong. They
               | are made for development and deep changes, not routine
               | stuff.
               | 
               | That is _not_ "nothing has changed".
        
               | KingMachiavelli wrote:
               | You can still clear cookies for a single site by clearing
               | all data for the site. Does not require devtools. If a
               | site is bad enough to require clearing cookies, clearing
               | the cache & stored data is probably not a bad idea.
               | 
               | If your site needs users to clear cookies, then you
               | should fix your site. Clearing cookies is not a routine
               | thing.
        
               | Matthias1 wrote:
               | You can still clear all cookies for a given site from
               | within preferences.
               | 
               | They're removing the listing of individual cookies for
               | each site. So you can still remove all cookies from, e.g.
               | Hacker News, but will no longer be able to see the
               | individual names of the cookies, e.g.
               | `ph_6CDb7STpzm64A_...`.
        
               | renewiltord wrote:
               | It is still in 'Settings', guys. It's in
               | chrome://settings/content/all instead of
               | chrome://settings/siteData . Read the third and fourth
               | sentences of the linked article. You will literally be
               | able to browse to it in Settings.
               | 
               | I do have to commend you on the bold tone while being so
               | misleading, though. Haha, good stuff. I propose a Law of
               | Increasing Internet Indignation: indignation is a
               | monotonically decreasing function of knowledge.
        
             | Akronymus wrote:
             | Or also twitter, where it is unusable without logging
             | in/blocking cookies (Which you can do from the preferences)
        
         | JeremyNT wrote:
         | It's a self fulfilling prophecy. Make a useful feature
         | difficult to discover, then remove it when few people discover
         | it. The (not insignificant) current barrier for normal users to
         | selectively remove cookies will be made even higher if you ask
         | them to use dev tools.
         | 
         | One could imagine a browser vendor who made this workflow easy
         | because they thought it was in the users' best interest.
         | Obviously, that browser vendor is not Google.
        
           | p_j_w wrote:
           | >Make a useful feature difficult to discover, then remove it
           | when few people discover it.
           | 
           | How many people do you really think would ever need this
           | feature in day to day use, even if it were extremely easy to
           | find? The number is probably vanishingly small.
        
         | topspin wrote:
         | Seems like this capability would be better served with an
         | extension. Most (as in nearly all) users will never play with
         | individual cookies and the people that need to can turn to
         | quality extensions with more capability than the browser is
         | ever likely to build in.
        
       | hamburgerwah wrote:
       | Just how much of a middle finger can they give to users before
       | people wake up and move to Firefox? There was a time Firefox had
       | some performance problems but that time has passed, it works
       | every bit as well as Chrome does now, if not better.
        
         | franklyt wrote:
         | Firefox is not as performant as Chrome is. This is something a
         | web developer will have come across, if not an average user.
        
           | butz wrote:
           | While Chrome performance is obviously better for browsing,
           | somehow opening DevTools makes it work much slower. As for
           | casual user, installing ad-blocker makes web browsing way
           | faster.
        
       | [deleted]
        
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