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Configure Firefox to reject cookie banners automatically

Martin Brinkmann
Dec 24, 2022
Firefox
|
23

Mozilla is working on a new feature for its Firefox web browser that takes the annoyance out of dealing with so-called cookie banners. Mozilla created a built-in solution that deals with cookie banners for Firefox users. More precisely, Firefox rejects cookie banners automatically when the feature is enabled, provided that the site has a "reject all" option. If there is just an "accept all" option, that option is selected instead.

Please note that the feature is available in Firefox Nightly only at this point. There is a good chance, however, that it will be included in Firefox Stable soon. For now, Firefox Nightly is required to use the functionality.

Mozilla ran a campaign back in November 2022 to get feedback from Firefox users who used the automated cookie banner handling of the browser. The page is still up and it provides some information on the feature, including how to enable it in Firefox.

Enable Firefox's automatic handling of cookie banners

  1. Load about:config in the Firefox address bar.
  2. Confirm that you will be careful if a warning page is displayed.
  3. Search for cookiebanners.service.mode.
  4. Double-click on the preference and set its value to 2.
  5. If you want to have the same functionality in private browsing mode, search for cookiebanners.service.mode.privateBrowsing and set its value to 2 as well.

Instructions for Firefox Focus and Firefox for Android are provided as well. These are similar, but require that the preference cookiebanners.bannerClicking.enabled is set to True as well on about:config.

The effect of the change

Firefox handles most cookie banners that websites display automatically from that moment on; this worked considerably well during tests, but not on all sites. One issue that some users may have with the feature is that it is configured to accept cookies if there is no "reject" option available.

Some Firefox users may prefer that the browser is not acting at all in that case. While that would return cookie banners on sites that do not display reject all options, it would give users the option to deal with these cookies, including leaving the site without allowing cookies to be placed by it.

Firefox users had to use browser extensions such as Auto Cookie Optout or Never-Consent in the past to deal with cookie notices automatically.

Mozilla is not the only browser developer that is working on rejecting cookie banners automatically. Brave is working on such a feature as well, and you may already enable it in the browser. Vivaldi introduced the feature back in April of 2021 in the company's browser.

Now You: how do you handle cookie banners?

Summary
Article Name
Configure Firefox to reject cookie banners automatically
Description
Mozilla is working on a new feature for its Firefox web browser that takes the annoyance out of dealing with so-called cookie banners.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. kampus muhammadiyah sejuta inovasi said on October 23, 2023 at 6:49 am
    Reply

    good info, thank you

  2. bob said on December 31, 2022 at 5:21 pm
    Reply

    In fact like the really annoying websites with no regard to data or privacy like this one who force you to reject ten separate items instead of providing a reject all, because everyone wants to reject or allow selective cookies don’t they.

  3. Bob said on December 31, 2022 at 5:17 pm
    Reply

    You mean those ‘annoyances’ like the cookie pop-up at this site…

  4. Anonymous said on December 27, 2022 at 5:03 pm
    Reply

    “Firefox users had to use browser extensions such as Auto Cookie Optout or Never-Consent in the past to deal with cookie notices automatically.”

    Or uBlock Origin, then enabling after install the “Easylist Cookie”, “Fanboy’s Annoyance” or “AdGuard Annoyances” list.

    As with all built-in privacy features in such browsers, the preferable solution would have been instead to include by default the known existing, ethical solution that is not Mozilla-controlled. And possibly to contribute human resources to those tools to the extent of not taking control, in order to help unbreak pages for example.

    1. Anonymous said on December 28, 2022 at 1:16 am
      Reply

      Same Anonymous as 5:03pm. I’ve looked at it more closely and as expected, Mozilla’s solution seems inferior to the uBlock Origin one. It works only on a few hundreds of first-party domains on a definite list, around 400:

      https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Nb4gVlGadyxix4i4FBDnOeT_eJp2Zcv69o-KfHtK-aA/edit#gid=0

      while uBO style cookie banner lists have in addition to domain specific rules a huge amount of generic rules that will work for any domain. Sure, this means more site breakage chances, but if it became a default Firefox embed, a larger number of users (and optionally Mozilla’s own time contributions) would mean more reports of breakage and more corrections. While here Mozilla is only ready to take care of those 400 or so domains and it’s not even clear if they would accept community reports. Well, they do accept them for breakage due to Firefox tracking protection, so who knows.

      Another issue is that auto-clicking “reject all” or if no other choice “accept all” are not the only options, the cookie banners could also merely be blocked or hidden when “accept all” is the only available choice (sometimes blocking/hiding them not sufficient and prevents access to the site, but not always). It’s typically the sort of situation where I do not trust Mozilla to do the right thing.

  5. zincoxide said on December 26, 2022 at 3:22 am
    Reply

    For this issue, I’ve used the Consent-o-Matic Firefox add-on (which, despite the name, rejects where possible) and the I-don’t-care-about-cookies FF add-on (not too fussed about it allowing cookies b/c Cookie AutoDelete, First Party Isolation, permanent Private Mode, etc).

    I’ve also tried a couple of uBlock Origin filter lists (the I-don’t-care etc list, and Fanboy Annoyance list, which contains EasyList Cookie list).

    They all seem to work to some extent, with my favorite solution currently being the first. But if FF incorporates this functionality and I can ditch some add-ons, that’s good.

  6. Anonymous said on December 25, 2022 at 11:30 am
    Reply

    yep perfect indeed!

  7. hg said on December 25, 2022 at 10:53 am
    Reply

    > If there is just an “accept all” option, that option is selected instead.

    Total idiocy!!!

    1. Tom Hawack said on December 25, 2022 at 1:04 pm
      Reply

      Depends. Some sites won’t run, or won’t run fully without accepting cookies, or specific cookies. This is why tailoring cookie consent is the ideal solution in such cases, and this is performed with the ‘I don’t care about cookies’ or — better IMO — the ‘I still don’t care about cookies’ extension :

      Quote from [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/istilldontcareaboutcookies/]

      “In most cases, the add-on just blocks or hides cookie related pop-ups. When it’s needed for the website to work properly, it will automatically accept the cookie policy for you (sometimes it will accept all and sometimes only necessary cookie categories, depending on what’s easier to do). It doesn’t delete cookies.”

      Cookie consent is not always as easy to resolve as a ‘yes/no’ for all cookies. On some sites you may reject all, on other sites you must accept all, on other sites you must accept some cookies whilst not all. This is when the above extension automatically chooses the best cookie consent to conciliate the site’s proper rendering together with the user’s privacy. Rejecting all doesn’t always work, even if it should if GDPR was strictly respected, which is often not the case.

      After that, using the ‘Cookie Autodelete’ extension allows the user to wipe the site’s cookies and localStorage when exiting the site, at his will. Personally I manage cookie banners only to avoid being bothered by the banner each time I open a site requiring cookie consent (given I delete unwanted cookies including consent cookies), not for privacy given ‘Cookie Autodelete’ wipes cookies I deny when exiting the site.

      1. Derek Clements said on December 26, 2022 at 6:48 am
        Reply

        Thanks for the tips Tom. A nice and useful post – much appreciated :)

    2. Anonymous said on December 25, 2022 at 12:30 pm
      Reply

      Learn to read.

  8. Iron Heart said on December 25, 2022 at 10:16 am
    Reply

    > Now You: how do you handle cookie banners?

    EasyList Cookie List, I don’t care about cookies – List (the list specifically, not the extension)

    Works for me in Brave.

    1. JimmyQ said on January 1, 2023 at 10:59 am
      Reply

      Thank you for this! I knew about the extension but not about the actual list. Just added it to my uBlock Origin custom list. One less add-on.

  9. sef said on December 25, 2022 at 8:11 am
    Reply

    it could tick accept all? might as well not bother having it.

  10. John G. said on December 24, 2022 at 11:55 pm
    Reply

    I remember a Chrome extension named “remove cookie banners” that also removes the banners of using adblockers in some sites. I wonder if something similar is available for Firefox. Thanks for the article.

  11. Tom Hawack said on December 24, 2022 at 11:41 pm
    Reply

    “Firefox handles most cookie banners that websites display automatically from that moment on; this worked considerably well during tests, but not on all sites. One issue that some users may have with the feature is that it is configured to accept cookies if there is no “reject” option available.”

    There might also be situations where a “reject” option is available but where the site won’t run correctly if “reject” is the user’s option, which means that in such situations the user needs to explicitly accept. The “I still don’t care about cookies” extension (or it’s ancestor “I don’t care about cookies”) does just that :

    Quote from [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/istilldontcareaboutcookies/]

    “In most cases, the add-on just blocks or hides cookie related pop-ups. When it’s needed for the website to work properly, it will automatically accept the cookie policy for you (sometimes it will accept all and sometimes only necessary cookie categories, depending on what’s easier to do). It doesn’t delete cookies.”

    As we see : flexibility at its best.

    Concerning Firefox’s native upcoming “reject cookie banners automatically” partially implemented in Firefox 108, as described on “Firefox Cookie Banner Handling” at [https://community.mozilla.org/en/campaigns/firefox-cookie-banner-handling/] :

    “Cookie banner handling works with a list of domains. Only domains on that list will get automated handling regarding their cookie banners. The domains covered are on this list that was built as a mix of top sites for top countries on Firefox. We intend to grow the list (1) as time grows and welcome feedback on unsupported sites that should be added to the list.”

    (1) : [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Nb4gVlGadyxix4i4FBDnOeT_eJp2Zcv69o-KfHtK-aA/edit#gid=0]

    – I dislike the idea of depending on a list established by Google
    – The list is a work in progress, as the very “Cookie banner handling” feature. Lists are never exhaustive but they are perfectible, as well as algorithms are perfectible. At this time together with uBlock Origin”s dedicated lists I use above mentioned “I still don’t care about cookies” which proves to fill the gap for sites which cannot be handled correctly by uBO.

    Be noted than cookie banners is a generic term when in fact some sites will use localStorage rather than cookies to store the user’s decision, i.e. [https://www.francetvinfo.fr/] : user must accept the “cookie” consent in order to have the site’s videos made available, and the consent is all in the user’s localStorage : no traditional cookie. Such cases are perfectly handled by the “I still don’t care about cookies” extension and I doubt Firefox’s “Cookie banner handling” will ever handle it as well, be it because of its list, be it rather because of its very architecture which, i’m afraid, will be as approximate as it’s “HTTPS -Only” is (yes I have examples where this feature isn’t well carried out, and this if this pref is “false” by default on FF108 it’s mabe for a good reason.

    I like Firefox, always have, but honesty urges me to emphasize on what I consider to be fast taken decisions to carry out essential features, those motivated by changing web consitions, but unfortunately to offer them before they are developed to an extent comparable in quality to what elaborated extensions perform.

    At this time I use the “I still don’t care about cookies” extension and block “Firefox Cookie Banner Handling” :

    // DISABLE COOKIE BANNER HANDLING
    // We disable because cookie banners are managed here with the ‘I still don’t care about cookies’ extension
    // and with UBO dedicated lists.
    // DEFAULTs relate to those of Firefox 108.0
    pref(“cookiebanners.bannerClicking.enabled”, false); // DEFAULT=true
    pref(“cookiebanners.bannerClicking.testing”, false); // DEFAULT=false
    pref(“cookiebanners.cookieInjector.enabled”, false); // DEFAULT=true
    pref(“cookiebanners.service.enableGlobalRules;”, false); // DEFAULT=false
    pref(“cookiebanners.service.mode”, 0); // DEFAULT=0
    pref(“cookiebanners.service.mode.privateBrowsing”, 0); // DEFAULT=0
    pref(“cookiebanners.ui.desktop.enabled”, false); // DEFAULT=false

    Should Firefox Cookie Banner Handling deliver positive feedback once it will have had the time to show its capacities then I”ll consider using it rather than a dedicated extension, but I doubt it… and I really, but reaaly dislike (to put it mildly) having to rely on a Google list.

  12. 1LUC1D4710N said on December 24, 2022 at 10:45 pm
    Reply

    Just use Firefox Beta instead of Nightly on smartphone, you can use your collections. Firefox stable on devices like PC and laptop works wonder for these mentioned addons on the article.
    If you use these types of addons on pc like laptop, and added them to Collections, you can access same features on Firefox Beta for smartphone or device that was lacking Collections.
    Use Firefox Beta instead of Nigthly. Nightly is focused to onion like and constantly getting updated. Use Firefox Beta instead, which reminds of Firefox stable for smart devices but just with access to configuration and access to Collections.

  13. Jek Porkins said on December 24, 2022 at 8:49 pm
    Reply

    OK, if that works 100% of the time, cool. Because I’ve seen other browsers, particularly mobile ones that have a separate switch setting “Block Cookie Prompts” and it’s a hit-and-miss. If it’s the same here too, then it’s kinda useless, like Brave, Opera and Vivaldi’s default content blocking, which is nowhere enough and you just keep them off, ignore their existence and just install uBlock Origin.

    If Firefox does something like that next, add some built-in content blocking, and if one can wish – integrate uBlock Origin, I will accept the browser as actually trying to do something.

    But I highly doubt they will do that, because something, something related to Google.

  14. Anonymous said on December 24, 2022 at 8:45 pm
    Reply

    This user feedback requires a cookie being set. Do you agree to accept a cookie so I can respond.

  15. Anonymous said on December 24, 2022 at 8:13 pm
    Reply

    Cookie banners are typically created with 3rd party scripts. I use uMatrix to block 3rd party scripts by default.

  16. uBlock Origin said on December 24, 2022 at 6:20 pm
    Reply

    Now You: how do you handle cookie banners?

    I use uBlock Origin.

  17. Paul(us) said on December 24, 2022 at 4:08 pm
    Reply

    Quite simply actually up to now by using the not-longer maintained Cookie notification Hider – https://github.com/Draluy/cookienotificationhider

    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookies-notification-hider/

    So this by Martin Brinkman offered/introduced possibility is a better one.

  18. aceventura said on December 24, 2022 at 3:31 pm
    Reply

    I hope they do something like this for their FF for Android as Google keeps bypassing overlay-buster.js

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