At the company’s I/O 2019 developer conference, Google has announced its plan to introduce two new privacy and security-oriented features in the upcoming versions of its Chrome web browser.
In an attempt to allow users to block online tracking, Google has announced two new features—Improved SameSite Cookies and Fingerprinting Protection—that will be previewed by Google in the Chrome web browser later this year.
Cookies, also referred to as HTTP cookies or browser cookies, are the small pieces of information that websites store on your computer, which play an important role in improving your online experience.
Cookies are created by a web browser when a user loads a particular website, which helps the website to remember information about your visit, like your login information, preferred language, items in the shopping cart and other settings.
However, cookies are also being widely used to identify users and track their activities not only on the site that issued a cookie but also on any third-party site that includes a resource shared by the same site, for example, cookies used for ad retargeting and behavioural advertising.
Since currently there is no standard way to identify or categorize how websites are using cookies, all these cookies used for different purposes look the same to the browsers and clearing them would log you out of all sites, resetting your online preferences.
Improved SameSite Cookies Offers More Control to Users
While acknowledging this, Google has now planned to modify the way cross-site cookies work across the Internet, making it easier for Chrome browser users to block or clear all such third-party cookies without losing sign-in information and settings.
In a detailed blog post, Google explains a new mechanism that website developers have to follow in the coming months to explicitly specify which cookies on their sites are allowed to work across websites and could be used to track users.
images from Hacker News
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