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Apologies if my post seems like a rant
In this modern era, it's impossible to access a website without being bombarded by countless pop-ups requesting your permission to track, monitor, sell, and monetize your data and metadata. The one thing that occurred to me is that this is not only pointless but actually harmful.
Before this absurd policy, you could simply delete your cookies once a week (or occasionally) and your browsing experience would be mostly normal (except for some websites that log you out). This action had a meaningful impact since it reset your browser's cookie collection periodically.
In today's world, however, you, the privacy-conscious web user, have to select, click, and spend hours of your time trying to avoid these pop-ups. And if you do find something that actually works (deleting cookies), you have to go through this whole process again.
Compare this to the average person who doesn't care, logs into every website, and approves everything. They will enjoy a "nice experience".
It is truly unfortunate that we shifted the burden onto users who actually take action to protect their privacy.
Jan 28 · 4 months ago · 👍 gritty, drh3xx, stack
It will probably get worse..
I also hate navigating the cookie opt out game on every site. also I've seen some sites where everything is necessary. which, I guess?
I actually like the regular annoyance. good sites just offer a single "no" button. if they don't, at least I'm constantly encouraged to reflect on my bad habits
I just had to set up a completely unsecured chrome browser in order to pay my internet provider that had 42 web bugs and trackers on the main page and would not let me in with my LibreWolf with a couple of privacy plugins. The provider had no phone number to pay the bill (they used to but I could not find it anywhere). Once in using chrome, I was told that all my data was recently stolen and I had to change the password, and that my rate went up $10 due to increasing costs.
cookies are not the worst problem. search for browser fingerprinting. once u logged in with that browser to some service, it fingerprinted you. even if you remove your account on that service, its spies on different pages (fb like button, or google analytics etc) will be able to identify you - former user of that service. by browser. it gives way too much info about you: os, screen resolution, fonts, etc. and if you check on some websites, you will probably find out that your combination of those parameters is unique ameng millions of people.
one more thing: browser has access to your accelerometer data and should not ask for permission. and it knows if you're in toilet or in bus with these people.
@norayr: Indeed, cookies are now a distraction. Fingerprinting provides foolproof tracking of browsers through servers. Our best bet is blocking all advertising and tracking servers every way available, and avoiding services which directly fingerprint us.
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