Apple

Managing cookies in Chrome

maggie

Chrome, by default, allows cookies to be set by all websites. We advise installing the “Vanilla Cookie Manager” extension so that you can control which websites can save their cookies on your system. You only really need to allow cookies from sites that you want to interact with, such as sites that you need to log in to for shopping, banking, webmail, facebook, etc.

Installing Vanilla Cookie Manager
  •  Open Chrome
  • Tools > Extensions
  • Click “Get more extensions”
  • In the search box, type Vanilla Cookie Manager
  • In the resulting page, click the “Add to Chrome” button and click Add in the confirmation box.
  • Close the extension tab

 

How to use Vanilla Cookie Manager

Once this extension is installed, an icon will be added in the right hand side of the address bar, next to the favourites star icon.

VanillaCookieManager - unlisted site
website not in whitelist

Clicking the icon provides a dialog for quickly adding the current site to the  whitelist. It also gives an option to delete unwanted cookies (any that are not related to your whitelist).

 

VanillaCookieManager
website is whitelisted

After adding a site to your whitelist, the diagonal line through the icon disappears, indicating that you have allowed cookies for that website.

 

Right-clicking the icon provides further options for managing your whitelist.

Managing cookies in Firefox

maggie

Firefox, by default, allows cookies to be set by all websites. We advise installing the “Cookie Whitelist” extension so that you can control which websites can save their cookies on your system. You only really need to allow cookies from sites that you want to interact with, such as sites that you need to log in to for shopping, banking, webmail, facebook, etc.

Installing Cookie Whitelist
  •  Open Firefox
  • Tools > Add-ons
  • In the Search box on the top, right of page – type cookie whitelist
  • Find “Cookie Whitelist, With Buttons (if you don’t see it click See all results at the bottom) and click the “Add to Firefox” button next to it
  • You will be presented with a
    box – click the Install button when it’s ready
  • Restart Firefox

 

How to use the Cookie Whitelist buttons

Once this extension is installed, two buttons are added to the top of your browser to allow easy control over cookies.

CookieWhitelistButton

 

 

The Add (+) button adds a dialog for quickly adding the current site to the  whitelist. Green indicates that the site is not yet listed in the whitelist; grey indicates it has already been added and can set cookies.

The Record (red) button allows Firefox to temporarily accept cookies from any site not on the whitelist. These cookies will be deleted when Firefox is closed. This makes it much easier to deal with the occasional sites that refuse to work without cookies.

Right-clicking on either of the buttons enables you to manage your whitelist and any currently stored cookies.  It also allows you to choose whether or not to allow third party cookies (best to generally say no to these, although you may need them for a small number of sites; trial and error prevails here, I’m afraid!)