Why no temporary cookie permissions?
I've been using cookie monster to manage my cookies for quite a while. I never see a cookie dialog pop up...all sites except the very few I whitelist in permissions are silently dropped. When I need to use a site's cookies that are not on my whitelist I use cookie monster to set a temporary permission to accept session cookies. This permission disappears as soon as I close the browser.
With Firefox's rapid release schedule this addon is broken, again. Now I have no way to manage my cookies except the horribly inferior default manager. Why would I want an ever growing list of blocked sites listing all the places I have been on the internet? Before cookie monster I had hundreds, if not thousands of blocked sites which, in reality, is a map of all my surfing habits and a real threat to my privacy. Now I have 6 allowed sites. That's it. Everything else is handled on a temporary basis.
Am I the only one who sees this as an issue? Why has Firefox's own cookie management been so sub par for so long? The only thing keeping me on Firefox is the functionality of a few extensions that I cannot get anywhere else. When these break, or are abandoned I am left at a loss. Where can I express my need for a more robust and privacy friendly cookie management system? I've been a loyal Mozilla user for years, before Firefox was even born. I'd like to continue to be so.
Firefox version 11 cookiemonster version 1.1.0
Valitud lahendus
Well I was about to say I knew about the clear recent history dialog and it's effect on stored settings, then I went and compared this FF installation with my laptop. They are both the same version with the same version of cookie monster. The laptop version was still exhibiting the behavior of labeling "temp allow" as "allow"...but was deleting them on close like it should. Upon checking the clear history options I found something new... "offline website data" I have no idea how long this option has been present, but it was un-ticked on the laptop, so I tried it here on the desktop. Success at last!
Now what the hell is "offline website data" and how did I miss that? At least now I have something to pass on to the author. I don't know how the setting for a temporary permission would be stored in "offline website data" but I would guess it was being deleted before cookie monster got the chance to use the data during shutdown. I noticed the "maintain offline storage" setting in the permissions manager, but didn't relate that to my problem. Thanks for the help :)
Loe vastust kontekstis 👍 1All Replies (7)
Cookie Monster is compatible with Firefox 12: Works with Firefox 3.5 - 12.*
- Cookie Monster: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/cookie-monster/
Thanks for the reply. The addon still "functions" but not entirely. Firefox has 3 permission states for cookies by default: "allow" "allow for session and "block." Cookie monster adds a fourth state: "temporarily allow." This fourth state is no longer working, as when it is chosen, the state "allow" is entered under exceptions, when previously "temporarily allow" would be entered. This causes the exceptions list to get filled with "allowed" sites I had no intentions of allowing to set cookies except on a temporary basis. This behavior makes the addon nearly useless. This has happened before, and required an update to the addon for it to be fixed. I could try the Firefox beta 12.0b5 version, but I'm pretty sure the problem will remain.
I have contacted the addon author and hope to hear back from him. The reason I posted here was to get some feedback on whether anyone else finds Firefox's cookie management lacking, and where best I could express that feeling to anyone that could implement such a change. I did some searching and found the current feedback url from one of your previous posts so I definitely will submit it there.
Current Firefox versions seem to store the permissions automatically for visited sites.
You can see that on the about:permissions page that allows to manage permissions for all visited sites.
I assume that "temporarily allow" would mean to create session cookies that expire when you close Firefox.
not only does the cookie expire and get deleted on close when set to "temporarily allow" the permission listed in the exceptions dialog does as well. The result is a small whitelist of sites listed under exceptions that I allow to use cookies all the time, and nothing else in there.
You can also revoke that temporary permission with a click or 2 and it deletes the cookie and the temporary exception at any time during the browsing session.
Do not use Clear Recent History to clear the "Site Preferences"
Clearing "Site Preferences" clears all exceptions for cookies, images, pop-up windows, software installation, and passwords.
Thanks for the info on about:permissions. That would be the change that broke cookie monster last year, as I had to wait until September until the author updated it to get functionality back. I guess my question now is, what has changed recently in the permissions manager and how far do I need to roll back Firefox.
Valitud lahendus
Well I was about to say I knew about the clear recent history dialog and it's effect on stored settings, then I went and compared this FF installation with my laptop. They are both the same version with the same version of cookie monster. The laptop version was still exhibiting the behavior of labeling "temp allow" as "allow"...but was deleting them on close like it should. Upon checking the clear history options I found something new... "offline website data" I have no idea how long this option has been present, but it was un-ticked on the laptop, so I tried it here on the desktop. Success at last!
Now what the hell is "offline website data" and how did I miss that? At least now I have something to pass on to the author. I don't know how the setting for a temporary permission would be stored in "offline website data" but I would guess it was being deleted before cookie monster got the chance to use the data during shutdown. I noticed the "maintain offline storage" setting in the permissions manager, but didn't relate that to my problem. Thanks for the help :)