Is There an Extension That Will Auto-Delete Cookies Older Than 90 Days?

CharmCityCrab

Vivaldi has a great feature that allows you to automatically have history older than a number of days you set deleted. I find that I kind of want to start fresh every 3 months on a rolling basis, so I have it set to 90 days and so far, so good on the history.

I'd like to do the same with cookies. Right now, I see the browser storing thousands upon thousands of cookies, and obviously most are just profiling me for advertising purposes rather than benefiting me as a user or a human being. I don't want to go whole hog and only allow select sites to use cookies, as I've found most of those extensions create glitches in websites, and I value usability first and foremost. However, if I could automatically delete cookies placed older than 90 days on a rolling basis like I do with history, that'd be awesome. I'm okay with re-entering a password every 90s days or whatever.

Anyone know of an extension like that?

Or, if none of those exist, how about something that at least limits the duration of all new cookies placed and turns "evercookies" and the like into something with a reasonable defined end date?

Bonus question: Anyone know of a similar extension for Firefox for Android? Or, for that matter, an extension that'll do something like Vivaldi allows with limiting history to a certain period? I figured it'd be okay to ask that here, because Vivaldi doesn't have a competing Android browser (Yet?).

luetage

Just set cookies to session only, I have an extreme opinion on this, but there is really no reason why any site/company should store their tracking cookies on my personal computer. Of course, some sites could be an exception, and you would want your cookies stored, therefore you need to set exceptions. There is no native cookie whitelist yet, and although you can set exceptions in chrome settings, it's more comfortable to use an extension for this -- https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vanilla-cookie-manager/gieohaicffldbmiilohhggbidhephnjj

But yeah, 90 days... Why would you want this? Don't allow them to amass cookies in your storage in the first place.

Steffie

I also can't help you for the 90 days auto-purge, but i second @luetage 's comment re setting V cookies for session-only. However, with an eye to compromise between purity & pragmatism, i do use Vanilla Cookie Manager for those specific sites whose cookies i do want "permanently" retained for my convenience. I do cast my eye over its list, every so often, to satisfy myself that things are still ok.

Hadden89

Not exactly what are you looking for but.. with this you can purge most cookies you don't need and keeping the others.
Or even the extension suggested above which does the same; it works but I changed as the last update was in 2014.

CharmCityCrab

@hadden89 I tried that extension just now. It was already deleting my log-ins from whitelisted sites when I opened and closed the browser a few times to test it.

Unfortunately, the reality is that these extensions largely are not reliable in retaining the cookies that I want to keep, at least the ones I've historically tried for various browsers. Partly, this is because of sites' use of third-party cookies and various other things to retain log-in in details and settings, I'm sure. Yes, the modern web is a pain when it comes to stuff like that. However, the modern web is also a great tool, and it's the Internet we have.

My tolerance for breakage is probably about 1% at best. Under those conditions, the best I can do cookie wise is probably something that just clears each cookie 90 days after it's been placed or whatever, if such an extension exists. That's the compromise between usability and privacy I'm willing to make.

Similarly, I use UBlock Origin because it runs in the background and only rarely breaks websites, but tried and ultimately got rid of PrivacyBadger and Decentralize, because they broke things, and my frustration threshold is almost nill with stuff like that. I'll use things that rarely do anything that annoy me. If it's a near-constant annoyance, I won't use it. That's just how I roll. Fortunately, there is room for all kinds of people in the world!

I know a guy who won't play fantasy football because he doesn't like all the trackers and crap Yahoo uses. I respect his decision, but I'm going to keep playing fantasy football, personally. That's how I feel about it.