Individual cookie controls are removed from Privacy and Security in Chrome 97

Martin Brinkmann
Nov 19, 2021
Google Chrome
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Google's web browser Chrome will soon have reduced functionality when it comes to the managing of cookies under the Security and privacy menu entry in the browser's settings.

Currently, when you open Settings > Privacy and Security > Cookies and other site data > See all cookies and site data, Chrome is displaying all cookies that a site set individually once a site has been selected on the page that is loaded.

Chrome users may load chrome://settings/siteData directly as well to jump to this page right away.

google chrome privacy individual cookies

The management page supports the removal of individual cookies from a site and it can be used to display vital information about a specific cookie.

The deletion of individual cookies may be useful in some cases. Developers may make use of it to test site functionality, non-developers to remove cookies from sites that may be invasive to privacy, to change site functionality, or reset some functionality on sites.

Google is removing the option to see and delete individual cookies from the Settings page listed above. The company will replace it with the chrome://settings/content/all instead, which lists the number of cookies each site has set, but does not provide an option to view or delete individual cookies.

Google states that the change "creates a clearer experience for users". Users might "accidentally change the implementation details" of sites and "potentially break their experience on that site", if they delete individual cookies. Some users might even "run the risk of compromising some of their privacy protection, by incorrectly assuming the purpose of a cookie" according to the company.

Google goes on to state that the functionality is used by developers primarily, and that ability to delete individual cookies is still available in the Developer Tools of the browser.

Problems

Google is removing functionality from Chrome. While it is true, that cookies can be managed using the Developer Tools, it is clear that the option is not as straightforward as using the Settings application. You need to open the site in question to access its cookies and storage, whereas you could just open the page in Settings to manage all cookies on all sites in Chrome.

It is unclear if Google will keep the cookies listing when users activate the icon in front of the site in the browser's address bar.

It is a regression, one that is removing a useful option from Chrome. Even Developers may prefer the old way of managing cookies set in Chrome over the option to using the Developer Tools for that.

Google is rolling out the change in the beta version of Chrome 97. It is likely that the change will land in Chrome 97 Stable, unless stopper bugs are discovered that prevent the inclusion in the stable version.

Now You: what is your opinion on the change?

Summary
Individual cookie controls are removed from Privacy and Security in Chrome 97
Article Name
Individual cookie controls are removed from Privacy and Security in Chrome 97
Description
Google's web browser Chrome will soon have reduced functionality when it comes to the managing of cookies under the Security and privacy menu entry in the browser's settings.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. jensen said on November 30, 2021 at 11:45 pm
    Reply

    is the configuration necessary for the tor browser why are these settings turned off
    privacy.trackingprotection.enabled
    privacy.trackingprotection.socialtracking.enabled

  2. Hera said on November 26, 2021 at 12:57 pm
    Reply

    Can arkenfox user.js be used in the tor browser?

    1. norilana said on November 27, 2021 at 4:00 am
      Reply

      I read arkenfox’s documentation and they say

      > Use the Tor Browser if your threat model calls for it, or for accessing hidden services.

      I read these comments and confirmed them
      https://www.ghacks.net/2021/10/21/mozilla-firefox-microsoft-store-version/#comment-4506911
      https://www.ghacks.net/2021/10/21/mozilla-firefox-microsoft-store-version/#comment-4507037

      arkenfox is nothing like Tor Browser, so the answer is what they said in their read me

  3. audrey said on November 25, 2021 at 10:38 am
    Reply

    Martin Which is the best privacy browser ?

    1. Iron Heart said on November 25, 2021 at 6:00 pm
      Reply

      @audrey

      The Tor Browser Bundle. Bromite on Android. Brave for general use browsing.

    2. Nihal247 said on November 25, 2021 at 1:54 pm
      Reply

      Firefox

  4. miella said on November 20, 2021 at 7:55 pm
    Reply

    Martin Firefox and Chome which would you recommend ?

    1. the flaccid flamingo 365 said on November 21, 2021 at 1:05 pm
      Reply

      just use firefox and turn on enhanced tracking protection in strict mode and install ublock origin – this will solve most tracking
      – also look at arkenfox – https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js – for additional ways to harden privacy

      1. Rex said on November 22, 2021 at 2:51 am
        Reply

        Nobody asks why tf a supposedly privacy respecting browser needs ‘hardening’ in the first place.

      2. Iron Heart said on November 22, 2021 at 10:03 am
        Reply

        @Rex

        The “hardening” BS rears its head again. All you do there is fingerprinting yourself while thinking that you have “enhanced” your privacy. Complete bullshit. arkenfox is bullshit, copied from Tor.

      3. Sunny said on November 26, 2021 at 10:23 am
        Reply

        @Iron Heart

        is arkenfox really bad

      4. the flaccid flamingo 365 said on November 22, 2021 at 3:00 am
        Reply

        it is privacy respecting, but has to work with non-privacy respecting web standards. Hardening is not for all, but the fact you can, and turn on future developments early is a bonus

        all browsers can be hardened, but firefox does it best

      5. Nihal247 said on November 24, 2021 at 6:13 am
        Reply

        > All you do there is fingerprinting yourself while thinking that you have “enhanced” your privacy. Complete bullshit. arkenfox is bullshit, copied from Tor

        Constantly repeating lies that have been empirically debunked, numerous times, does not make them no longer lies.

        I don’t want to be your friend anymore, it is clear that arkenfox lives in your head and Pants runs rings around you

    2. Martin Brinkmann said on November 21, 2021 at 6:05 am
      Reply

      Firefox. Don’t use Chrome, unless it is for work-related tasks, e.g. making sure a site displays fine in Chrome.

      1. sal said on November 21, 2021 at 10:55 am
        Reply

        Or use Ungoogled chromium v.96.0.4664.45.

  5. Richard Steven Hack said on November 20, 2021 at 4:45 am
    Reply

    Yet another example of how “developers” are the biggest threat to users use of software.

    As with Microsoft, the first thing any “developer” does is decide what functions he’s going to provide to the end user – or more precisely, which functions he’s NOT going to provide. This leads inevitably to a reduced function set which subsequently creates problems that are “corrected” by more mistaken design decisions. The end result is bloat, unusable software, and insecurity.

    The software industry needs to do two things: 1) remove programmers from the design process and automate them out of the industry, and 2) require “developers” to actually have some concept of engineering and then provide them with automation which informs their design decisions and corrects their design mistakes.

    Good luck with that.

    1. Anonymous said on November 20, 2021 at 4:18 pm
      Reply

      Are you ok?

  6. Anonymous said on November 20, 2021 at 1:12 am
    Reply

    Me who always clear cookie on close: Cookie? What’s that? Can I eat it?

  7. Anonymous said on November 20, 2021 at 12:47 am
    Reply

    While it’s still allowed to say so without being banned for “conspiracy theory”: Google obviously lied on the motives, as usual. And Firefox will follow, for the same reasons, as usual.

  8. J. tripper said on November 19, 2021 at 8:17 pm
    Reply

    All in the name of security, because Google really cares about user privacy. Hahahahahahah Lololololol Big machine only concerned about forcing ads and tracking your every move. The Sheep rejoice and hail Google. For me its a no!!!

  9. Liver Rooster 365 said on November 19, 2021 at 7:42 pm
    Reply

    Friends, tell me honestly, have you ever used this function? I personally heard about it for the first (and last) time in my life.

    As if these settings or cookies have any meaning to anyone other than the developers of this garbage. You can remove them, disable, microwave ’em, do whatever makes you happy, but you need to understand one simple painful fact..

    Your uniquely “hardened” browsers have long been profiled and classified into the category “tinkerers with little or no understanding”. Interests: VPN, tinfoil hats, scary stories.

    1. Spotted Tit 365 said on November 20, 2021 at 1:43 pm
      Reply

      just use the cliq-free mr.robot-free normandy-free brave and enrich the ticket-clipping venture capitalists and the shady bloated mess of crypto wallets, BATs, url hijacking and repackaged kung-foo webrtc. There is no need to fatten baker, when you can give it all to the eichBAT, in an inferior product

  10. Sime equation said on November 19, 2021 at 5:53 pm
    Reply

    The equation is quite simple: as long as people will keep using ang buying devices and software that continuously invade their privacy, undermine their liberties as owners (Right to Repair), and take away control bu dumbing everything down to basically a kiosk – things will continue to get more expensive, restricting, and abusive/exploitative.

    90% of humanity are morons. One reason why 1% of the populations is getting richer and amassing more control by the day.

  11. Chromium User said on November 19, 2021 at 5:09 pm
    Reply

    @Martin Brinkmann

    And, can you enlight us how many people even used this feature?

    It is weird that first you say “Developers may make use of it to test site functionality” and then you complain about managing your cookies in the Devtools which was made mostly for devtools or advanced users.
    Do you even think that a “non-developer” will really know what the cookies are about anyway? it is like minimal, so this removal makes sense, it removes redundancy and now the user won’t do stupid crap just because they got there by clickinig around.

    Devtools lets you do more than delete invidual cookies, so it is the better way.

    So stop complaining about every single things chrome does, I mean, be honest, did you ever used this page to remove invidiual cookies in your life? if the answer is no, then… I rest my case, if you say yes, how many times did you use it compared with chrome://settings/content/all? and that is your answer and it is only about you, now imagine all the millions of Chromium users that didn’t even know you could delete invidual cookies in settings or knew it but never used it, and the ones who instead used the proper DevTools extended features for the task.

    Be reasonable and stop complaining about every single thing Google does without using a proper reasoning about the situation.
    Look at the comments, you are actually deceiving people, because people are just reading the title and commenting, rather than reading the whole article and only maybe the first 2 paragraph and the picture.
    Be objective and stop complaining about something I am 100% sure you never even used, but most people have used the DevTools if they talk about cookie anything (not just deletion).

    Like I said, you even talked about Developers and then started to talk how easy blabla and Devtools blabla.
    Actually using DevTools is better and faster and easier to get to if someone really cares about it.

    The only disadvantage I can see by removing this is now you have to open the website to get the information on Devtools, but, did you even mention that? nah. you just created this soap opera about it.
    That is the only real advantage of this page in settings, you could delete indvidual cookies form any websites anytime, devtools need you to open the domain to get the individual cookies.

    But again, if people want to modify something, they shouldn’t mind doing it in a safer better way with Devtools. And that is the reasoning Google is using here, you either delete all cookies or use the proper Devtools for that, which makes sense.

  12. common sense computing said on November 19, 2021 at 4:57 pm
    Reply

    The walls are closing in.

    1. Mystique said on November 19, 2021 at 6:05 pm
      Reply

      Apologies.
      That was not a shot against you @Iron Heart, it was just a general comment.

    2. Mystique said on November 19, 2021 at 5:55 pm
      Reply

      Indeed! Some people appear to like it that way or are too deep in denial or fanatical that they don’t see it happening.
      At what point do we pull the rug out from Google and Firefox even… I mean seriously!
      It’s amazing isn’t it.

      For some the walls closing in only means that the soda across the room is closer to their fat asses now. Another win for Morons!

    3. Iron Heart said on November 19, 2021 at 5:40 pm
      Reply

      @common sense computing

      Because of cookies? Really? What year is it?

  13. Freedom said on November 19, 2021 at 4:10 pm
    Reply

    Thanks for the heads up! Will save the Chromium 96 installers frpm woolyss and never ever update.

    1. Iron Heart said on November 19, 2021 at 5:42 pm
      Reply

      @Freedom

      Or… you just install an extension managing your cookies!? You should do this anyway, I use Cookie AutoDelete to delete cookies upon closing a tab since I don’t want to wait until I shut down the browser to delete them.

  14. Frank said on November 19, 2021 at 3:40 pm
    Reply

    Firefox is like the dilapidated apartment that is slowly falling apart (implementing native advertising into your product never leads anywhere pleasant, and every new version has some feature that the devs know I don’t want, which I have to go disable). Studies, anyone?

    Chromium/Chrome are like some sort of drug that feels great now, but I know that the consequences of using it will catch up with me later. (namely handing Google more control over the Internet)

    Too bad the web browser industry is such a shitshow. As for Edge, I’m not touching it with a ten foot pole, it is just Chromium packaged by an even more unscrupulous company, and modified to send my data their way.

    I’m just thankful for Blender, a product that is free and phenomenally well managed, so the foundation has lots of income without doing shady stuff to their userbase.

  15. piomiq said on November 19, 2021 at 2:12 pm
    Reply

    > Individual cookie controls are removed from Privacy and Security in Chrome 97
    [sarcasm]
    Just to be sure that user “accidentally” doesn’t remove important tracking information.
    [/sarcasm]

    I recommend Firefox, only one browser which truly care about user privacy.

    1. Anonymous said on November 19, 2021 at 4:47 pm
      Reply

      @piomiq
      This has nothing to do with privacy, what are you even talking about… do you even understand that the person complaining about this, first talks about “developers”, but then complains how the better way to delete and EDIT and ADD cookies in DevTools is not “as straight forward”.
      Who even uses this? if people want to do something about their cookies they should use DevTools anyway.
      You know a place to delete them in settings vs a place to edit, add, remove, see them better, and look at other settings like the local storage and session storage and other data that people who care about this stuff will have to use anyway?

      Don’t be clownish promoting a browser that gets half billion dollars from google, everything they do has to do with “user information”, the only way to “Firefox cares about privacy” is to modify the users.js and do a bunch of changes… yeah Firefox is good to modify things, but that doesn’t mean it they care about privacy, it just means they don’t care if some couple nerds decide to “harden” the browser.

      I mean, you talking about “privacy” because some removal that doesn’t matter and nobody really used is like me saying why do you support a company like Mozilla that openly supports censorship and deplatforming? while you might think it matters, it doesn’t, of course my point that has nothing to do with the conversatrion is more valid than yours, since I showed how this has nothing to do with privacy and people can still use devtools which is the way people should be doing these kind of things anyway, but it is just not what it is about, so please… stop being an ignorant Firefox fanboy and promoting the dying ‘gecko engine’ browser, there are million things why they don’t care about privacy… or… why does LibreWolf exists? how is that so many IPs connect when you open Firefox? it has even safebrowsing so they love the Google money and the Google safebrowsing? What about the other information they collect? oh yeah so much for privacy, being still part of Silicon Valley is caring about privacy, and using their same tactics while pretending they are better is caring about privacy.

      1. Scott said on November 19, 2021 at 5:27 pm
        Reply

        The article you linked to describes an opt-in feature.

  16. Anonymous said on November 19, 2021 at 1:05 pm
    Reply

    Just another sneaky move by Screwggle to keep their commercial revenue-stream intact and take away user choices. “A clearer experience for users” my patooie.

  17. Paul(us) said on November 19, 2021 at 12:47 pm
    Reply

    If one thing is certain in recent years is that the battle between shareholders and users is being fought to the bone.
    Some time ago, it was clear that ad-blocking via add-on was an apparent log in the eye of shareholders.

    The information hungry shareholders now want even more user information (Read money) and for that they are now deploying, the cookie monster.

    Hopefully there will be a Ghacks.net article soon paying attention to which add-on is best suited for this.

    At the moment I hope that the add-ons I am using now, to make sure as much as possible that I don’t get information from Google which is aimed at making their shareholders as much money as possible, will continue to work.
    Right now Cookie autodelete 3.6.0 (also with NoScript 11.2.11, Privacy Badger 2021.08.17, DuckDuckGo pricacy essentials 2021.9.30, Hello, Goodby 1.5.13, & uBlock Orgin1.38.6) is doing the job for me.
    Is it perhaps wise to put in an additional cookie blocker or any other form of protection?

    1. Iron Heart said on November 19, 2021 at 5:45 pm
      Reply

      @Paul(us)

      Privacy Badger and the DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials extension are pointless if you already have uBlock Origin installed. Delete those and install ClearURLs and LocalCDN.

      In general, piling up extensions in order to protect privacy is achieving the contrary of what is intended. Keep them at the bare minimum, without two or more extensions doing the very same thing.

      1. Alex said on November 20, 2021 at 10:04 am
        Reply

        I used to run ClearUrls. Unfortunately it silently breaks some sites and has no whitelisting functionality to overcome it. Combine that with the fact that it is no longer maintained and there you have it.

      2. Nico said on November 19, 2021 at 8:33 pm
        Reply

        @Iron Heart,

        The problem with ClearURLs is, that it’s not actively maintained…
        The maintainers of Adfilt (DandelionSprout, iam-py-test and contributors) have therefore created a uBO/AdGuard-compatible list based on ClearURLs:
        https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DandelionSprout/adfilt/master/ClearURLs%20for%20uBo/clear_urls_uboified.txt

        Again one extension less. :)

      3. Iron Heart said on November 20, 2021 at 9:58 am
        Reply

        @Nico

        Thanks for the tip, but the list doesn’t seem to work for me after adding it to uBO. The URLs aren’t being shortened without ClearURLs, so I had to re-enable this extension (which I would be most interested in dropping, if possible).

      4. Nico said on November 20, 2021 at 10:38 am
        Reply

        @Iron Heart,

        >the list doesn’t seem to work for me after adding it to uBO. The URLs aren’t being shortened without ClearURLs

        That’s very weird indeed…
        Maybe ask the maintainers on GitHub?
        https://github.com/DandelionSprout/adfilt/discussions/163

        After you imported the link to the text file, it should be visible in uBO Filterlists – Custom like this:
        https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/5sju4i1ryp434n7/Screenshot_uBO_20211120.png

      5. Nico said on November 20, 2021 at 11:06 am
        Reply

        @Iron Heart,

        [Edit]
        Maybe try using it along with:
        “? Actually Legitimate URL Shortener Tool”.
        https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DandelionSprout/adfilt/master/LegitimateURLShortener.txt

      6. Paul(us) said on November 19, 2021 at 6:23 pm
        Reply

        Thanks Iron Heart. You gave me a lot to work with.
        CleanUrl I already used and LocalCDN I will start the use.

    2. John G. said on November 19, 2021 at 1:57 pm
      Reply

      I installed some time ago all the privacy stuff that could be found around FF and even Chrome ‘store’. Anyway my level of paranoia was increased a lot. It’s insane that we need to install half dozen addons to feel good or even to browse with no privacy intrusion and also with the enough safety. There is a point where is impossible to browse, even worse with NoScript that is the most silly and weird addon ever made because it makes the browsing experience ugly as hell. Now I use only uBlock origin in FF for certain sites and none in Chrome. And I can sure you, and also you all, that after a couple of weeks of clean browsing around the web you won’t take care of cookies nor adds nor privacy. Clean browsing at common known sites is amazing for the mental health. Ublock origin by itself is just enough for all the other unknown sites by the way. :]

      1. Paul(us) said on November 19, 2021 at 6:26 pm
        Reply

        John G@ over the last 45 years I have noticed that I have increased significantly my protection.
        I do not agree with your assessment from NoScript. I do not think that Ublock is enough.
        Thanks for your reply.

  18. Nico said on November 19, 2021 at 9:42 am
    Reply

    You could have a look at Awesome Cookie Manager:
    https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/awesome-cookie-manager/hcpidejphgpcgfnpiehkcckkkemgneif

    No idea if that will keep working when the changes land in v97…

    1. @Thomas said on November 19, 2021 at 4:51 pm
      Reply

      @Nico

      Do you even read the article?
      They are ONLY removing the option to see and delete individual cookies, DevTools which is the way developers and anyone who cares about this type of information will not be touched… so why do you need a cookie manager, to install an extension that might steal your information when they sell to another entitity and add some bad script like has happeend 100 million times when you can just use DevTools for what it was meant to be used, for advanced stuff?
      You only need a cookie manager if you want to import and export cookies but even that is insecure and not good since many websites like google will not like you are adding cookies from one browser to another, which at least protects the user eventually unlike other websites that just let you add important information like nothing and they don’t detect the changes.

      But anyway, read the article and understand the issue. Who uses Settings to remove cookies? unless you are removing all cookies from all websites, then DevToos is the way people has to do these things.
      Devtools also lets you edit and add other type of information, so the change is probably to remove redundancy that might confuse the user.

      1. Norio said on November 19, 2021 at 7:30 pm
        Reply

        @Thomas, did you bother reading the article?
        ” …While it is true, that cookies can be managed using the Developer Tools, it is clear that the option is not as straightforward as using the Settings application. You need to open the site in question to access its cookies and storage…”
        I do not want to have to open the site to deal with individual cookies. So, from my point of view, a cookie manager is needed if Google goes ahead with this change.

      2. Nico said on November 19, 2021 at 5:42 pm
        Reply

        @ @Thomas,

        I did in fact read the article. :)

        I only suggested that extension as a way to achieve the goal easier than through dev tools.
        You are right though about the risk of the extension being sold to a malicious actor.

        Unfortunately this blog doesn’t let me edit or delete my previous comment.

  19. Taomyn said on November 19, 2021 at 7:58 am
    Reply

    Well another good reason to not be using Google’s version of Chromium, so I look forward to Brave undoing the change for their release with Chromium 97.

    Why are big companies making such dumbass moves? First Youtube and the removal of the dislike count view, and now Google doing this.

    1. Dumbledalf said on November 19, 2021 at 10:12 am
      Reply

      I don’t know about that, man. When Google implemented blocking of downloads that it considers “unsafe”, for a while Brave did not have that, I think it was released in Chrome 86. But now I noticed that Brave also blocks downloads and you have to use “Save as” in order to save them and then go through further shenanigans to save and keep your file.

      So don’t count on Brave to deliver you from Google’s mess. Vivaldi is guilty of the same.

      1. @Dumbledalf said on November 19, 2021 at 1:17 pm
        Reply

        I’m afraid you are right, it will be harder and harder for Chromium based browsers to fix Google’s mess. Let’s see what happens but I’m not optimistic at all.

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