Follow-up: Although not a fan of IE, I just found that it offers a "Prompt" selection under "Advanced Privacy Settings", just like the "Ask me every time" in FF.

This is one alternative for everyone who wants it. Until the feature returns, I will no longer use FF for my regular browsing.

kosimek - I agree with you 100%. And there are many people who are shocked and dismayed that Mozilla has canned this 100% essential privacy and security feature.

And, on top of that, Mozilla didn't tell anyone that it was deleting "ask me every time" from FF44 and setting everyone's browser to allow all cookies. Incredible!

What is Mozilla's motive?

There are two very good threads about this:

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2987945 and http://www.ghacks.net/2016/02/05/firefox-44ask-me-everytime-cookie-option-removed/#comment-3819357

I have alerted a number of tech reporters to this astounding move, and I urge all here to do more of the same.

Hi kosimek and glnz, I'm sure various people would like this option back, but using the support forum for your discussion isn't going to advance the ball.

For anyone finding this thread who thought it was directed toward a workaround, here's what I suggest:

(1) Select a default cookie policy among these options:

• Allow sites to set persistent cookies if they want ("Keep until: they expire")
• Allow sites to set only session cookies ("Keep until: I close Firefox") (I use and recommend this)
• Block sites from setting cookies (Uncheck the box for allowing sites to set cookies)

(2) Install an extension that makes it easy to make site-specific changes, such as Cookie Monster.

The Cookie Monster button on the toolbar allows you to see permissions for first party and third party cookies and to change them.

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/cookie-monster/

Sample screen shot attached -- the option to "Apply cookie settings to both HTTP and HTTPS" is turned on, which streamlines the menu. With this option you don't have to set/modify permissions for both HTTP or HTTPS on the same site.

jscher2000, you seem like a hardcore supporter of FF no matter what they do. I read your comments in the closed thread about V43 as well and they follow the same line.

Never mind Cookie Monster, the best solution is to use Comodo IceDragon (a forked version of Firefox) and instantly get your "Ask me every time" option back. Everything is exactly like you're accustomed to in FF, now only better.

Hi kosimek, I'm not shy about expressing my opinion on things I don't like. I do not love this particular feature. I let it drive me crazy for years with dozens and dozens of repetitive prompts, but eventually got fed up and stopped using it and haven't looked back.

(Doing support here, we also discovered that sites which use local DOM storage may fail in weird ways if their scripts start running before you finish answering all the prompts.)

Maybe I'm impatient, but I visit lots of sites once that I'll probably never visit again. Why bother having to decide everything in advance all the time? Just load the page! If I were designing it, Firefox would sandbox the cookies to the current site. The cookies would be valid in other tabs I open from the same site, but not shared across to any other sites without my approval. Once all of those tabs are closed, the cookies I didn't choose to keep would evaporate (like the Self-Destructing Cookies extension). Currently Firefox only has two cookie jars, one for regular windows and one for private windows, so it would be a big change and I'm not expecting it.

Mozilla is going a different direction, having incorporated tracking protection into private browsing by default, and also available to be enabled in regular windows. It's a different take on blocking tracking cookies based on the success of add-ons like Disconnect and Blur, and also has performance benefits of blocking the tracking scripts from loading. It is designed more for the average user than the control freak, and I think that encapsulates a lot of changes in Firefox over the past couple of years. Of course, I wish we could have it all, but people closer to the process are taking a different course.

Well, there we have it. YOU don't like it and therefore it should NOT be there. Unfortunately I, and many others, DO want it and will now have to look for an alternative, which I found in Comodo IceDragon.

But frankly I am a bit puzzled by your admission. If you don't want it because "I let it drive me crazy for years", why would you select that option in the first place? The other options that we are now left with have always been there! Why did you not select one of them then, as you are forced to now. Masochism perhaps?

Besides, for someone who has expressed a multitude of times that this issue is a development one and should not be brought up on this forum because this is a "Support" forum, since when have you become a Mozilla spokesperson? "Mozilla is going a different direction"

If you have anything at all to contribute on this forum that may provide a solution to what many perceive as a serious problem, either offer such a solution or refrain from taking part in the discussion. Or does it provide you with a feeling of importance? Just wondering.

kosimek - you are correct all the way. Mozilla has done a genuinely bad thing, for unknown motives. Its calling card was safety and privacy, and now Mozilla is throwing that away. Why?

Found a great place for alternatives to Firefox (while still using the familiar Firefox ecosystem), only the better versions where "Ask me every time" is (still) enabled.

http://alternativeto.net/tag/firefox-based/

Hi kosimek, that is not an accurate characterization of my own opinion and motivations. You asserted:

Well, there we have it. YOU don't like it and therefore it should NOT be there.

What I said was:

Of course, I wish we could have it all, but people closer to the process are taking a different course.

I wish we could have it all. I wish Mozilla could preserve the seemingly unlimited flexibility of earlier versions. But you and I do not always get what we wish for.

And then you say:

Besides, for someone who has expressed a multitude of times that this issue is a development one and should not be brought up on this forum because this is a "Support" forum, since when have you become a Mozilla spokesperson? "Mozilla is going a different direction"

Let me be even more clear: I'm not a spokesperson, I'm just telling you what I see based on having assisted here for a couple years.

In my opinion, this support forum works best for questions about the Firefox we have today: how to use and configure it, how to solve emergency situations like crashes and lost data, how to deal with problem websites, and whether any add-ons are available to work around limitations -- and there is no shortage of such questions. It is not a useful venue for agitating for feature changes because support volunteers don't deal with those areas.

this support forum works best for questions about the Firefox we have today: [...] and whether any add-ons are available to work around limitations

You hit the nail right on the head, so again, if you do not have anything positive to contribute on this point it would be best to stay out of the conversation. Chastising people who are voicing an opinion and are looking for alternatives, and then continuously harping on it, is not productive.

As I am not interested in an endless debate with you on this, I will leave it at that.

new versions of firefox have removed the "ask every time" option from cookie management.

This was absolutely the WRONG choice and a very bad decision. This decision shows that Mozilla has decided that privacy is not relevant, not important, not useful, and not something that Mozilla software users deserve. It has further demonstrated that Mozilla has decided that web developers MUST NOT use Firefox for their primary browser when developing web pages.

The "excuses" for this bad decision are either irrelevant, misconstrued, backwards, or non-issues:

-It exposes far too much detail about the underlying implementation of the Web

Well, this is actually important to any even semi-professional web developer. You need to see what cookie is being set, when it is being set in the page load process, what information is in it, when it expires, what path it is relevant for, etc. Without this information, the best web development you can hope for is "amateur," and testing web site functionality is eliminated. This is absolutely a backwards reason for eliminating this incredibly important feature of any web browser.

This does not provide any unnecessary information about how the web works, any more than having to install a plugin to see some kinds of content does.

-It forces the user to make a ridiculous number of decisions before visiting a Web site. For instance, amazon.com produces 8 dialog boxes, and ebay.com 15.

This is not a browser problem, this is a problem with poorly designed, improperly implemented, or just plain sloppy web sites. There is no excuse for the web site to do this, and it is not a browser issue, it is a web site issue. These sites should either be summarily blocked by users, or should receive feedback about the problems they are causing.

-Even informed users will not always have enough information to make an informed choice.

This is not a valid excuse. The cookie should provide enough information to allow a user to make an informed decision. Again, without the information provided by the site, this may be true, but this is a web site problem, not a web browser problem.

A more valid argument is that this should be the default setting on all web browsers, and changing it should be difficult. This would clean up a lot of sloppy development on a lot of web sites - especially big sites like Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Amazon, eBay, etc where sloppy cookie implementation is rampant.

Removing this highly important feature from Firefox is a huge security, privacy, and tracking problem. Even with FF set to not track and to block user tracking, and several privacy plugins installed, having cookies set to prompt showed that on many sites - possibly a MAJORITY of sites - major tracking services like Omniture and Google Analytics were still setting tracking cookies and tracking users. By removing this feature from Firefox, you have compromised the privacy and security of anybody using Firefox.

Hi weif, support deals with the Firefox we have today. If you can recruit a developer to fix the old code and propose how to add it back to Firefox 48+, that would get you closer to changing future versions of Firefox than posting here.

See also: https://input.mozilla.org/feedback/firefox

jscher2000 said

Hi weif, support deals with the Firefox we have today. If you can recruit a developer to fix the old code and propose how to add it back to Firefox 48+, that would get you closer to changing future versions of Firefox than posting here. See also: https://input.mozilla.org/feedback/firefox

Already posted to feedback, and it is NOW definitely a bug and should be treated like one - When Mozilla decides that privacy and security are going to be removed from the browser because web developers are sloppy and try to exploit people not concerned about their own privacy, then either Mozilla is on the side of the exploiters or this is a bug and needs to be addressed as one.

Hi weif, as I think I have mentioned before in this and other threads, Mozilla is not ignoring privacy. Firefox has added a built-in Tracking Protection feature. Obviously that doesn't replace the feature you miss, but having it as the default in Private browsing windows -- and the ability to enable it in regular windows -- likely is benefiting many more users than the old feature which likely went unnoticed by most users and, I think you have to admit, was annoying to use.

It would be great if someone could redesign "ask me every time" to work well, but that someone needs to step forward and write the code. If you think a new bug report (request for enhancement) will help, you can file one here:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi

jscher - you continue to be wrong about this issue.

"Ask me every time" worked perfectly. It popped up each time a new cookie appeared and gave us the perfect choice. If we selected to block always or to allow always, we never saw that popup again. After a short span of time, each of us had an excellent list of blocked and allowed cookies.

This feature was and remains essential to privacy and security. It was the start of my security learning process. There is still no replacement.

Mozilla's removal of this feature was not only wrong but a violation of trust. Instead of continuing to protect our privacy, Mozilla has sided with the big corporations, including Google.

I no longer contribute to Mozilla, and I no longer recommend Firefox. I told a friend yesterday just to install Chrome. It's faster than Firefox, and Firefox no longer provides better security.

Hi glnz, support volunteers didn't remove this feature and can't add it back. You know what you need to know to work around this change or to try to change it.

Perhaps you could try social pressure from like-minded users with a petition? For example: https://www.change.org/p/mozilla-don-t-remove-xul-and-xpcom-support-from-add-ons

jscher2000 said

Hi weif, as I think I have mentioned before in this and other threads, Mozilla is not ignoring privacy. Firefox has added a built-in Tracking Protection feature.

Actually, this is a MAJOR anti-privacy step.

Obviously that doesn't replace the feature you miss, but having it as the default in Private browsing windows -- and the ability to enable it in regular windows -- likely is benefiting many more users than the old feature which likely went unnoticed by most users and, I think you have to admit, was annoying to use.

That's a red herring. It's like saying that it doesn't matter that we removed the doors and seatbelts from the car, it now has windows so you are still absolutely safe. The blocking tracking really doesn't work. There are many sites that still track through cookies, and Mozilla has quite clearly, with this change, said, "hello scam sites, please track people using our browser, we're telling them it's blocked, so they have a false sense of security."

It would be great if someone could redesign "ask me every time" to work well,

Why did it need a redesign? it worked well. It could have worked *better*, but it worked well.

but that someone needs to step forward and write the code. If you think a new bug report (request for enhancement) will help, you can file one here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi

I can't get logging in there to work... Do I need to use a browser other than Firefox?

weif said

I can't get logging in there to work... Do I need to use a browser other than Firefox?

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/createaccount.cgi

You need to create a Bugzilla.mozilla.org account if you do not have one as your support.mozilla.org account is only used here and not any other Mozilla sites.

James said

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/createaccount.cgi You need to create a Bugzilla.mozilla.org account if you do not have one as your support.mozilla.org account is only used here and not any other Mozilla sites.

Been there... That page cycles me back to sign up for an account here, where I already have one.

weif said

Been there... That page cycles me back to sign up for an account here, where I already have one.

Find the section on the right side of the page headed "I want to help" and read down from there.