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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

Exactly this. All the functionality is already built into Chrome right here:

https://developer.chrome.com/docs/devtools/storage/cookies/

Contrary to the headline, Chrome isn't removing the ability to do anything -- they're just removing it from the preferences interface, where I'm not sure it really ever made sense to include in the first place.

Truly, editing/deleting individual cookies isn't something any regular user ever needs to do -- just clearing per-site, which continues to exist in preferences.

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> deleting individual cookies isn't something any regular user ever needs to do

I disagree. A problem just recently with a gov site req'd you delete their cookies to resolve it (as an interim solution until they get around some year to fix the issue).

Right, so clear all the cookies for the gov site. Previously you could do that and now you can do that. Nothing has changed for this use case.

Settings vs dev tools does make a huge difference imo.

The settings pane gives you a cleaner ui for quick changes (debatable, but I certainly feel this way). Dev tools can break your browser if you do things wrong. They are made for development and deep changes, not routine stuff.

That is not "nothing has changed".

You can still clear cookies for a single site by clearing all data for the site. Does not require devtools. If a site is bad enough to require clearing cookies, clearing the cache & stored data is probably not a bad idea.

If your site needs users to clear cookies, then you should fix your site. Clearing cookies is not a routine thing.

You can still clear all cookies for a given site from within preferences.

They're removing the listing of individual cookies for each site. So you can still remove all cookies from, e.g. Hacker News, but will no longer be able to see the individual names of the cookies, e.g. `ph_6CDb7STpzm64A_...`.

It is still in 'Settings', guys. It's in chrome://settings/content/all instead of chrome://settings/siteData . Read the third and fourth sentences of the linked article. You will literally be able to browse to it in Settings.

I do have to commend you on the bold tone while being so misleading, though. Haha, good stuff. I propose a Law of Increasing Internet Indignation: indignation is a monotonically decreasing function of knowledge.

Regarding renewiltord's law.

Physician heal thyself.

> If you click the disclosure triangle for one of the entries, you see… well, basically nothing about the site data. And there are no delete buttons for individual cookies. The only button is "Clear data", an all or nothing option.

Site guidelines suggest that you ought to assume good faith on the part of your conversational partners and responsd courteously to the good faith interpretation of their words.

I suggest you have simply misunderstood what people are complaining about.

I picked my words kind of carefully. "Clear all the cookies for the gov site". It'll solve the problem. Then the other guy misunderstood and thought it was a DevTools not Settings issue. Literally the problem does not require "clear one cookie" functionality.

That's not good faith interpretation. That's wholesale misinterpretation which is either incompetence or malice. If you want to play the whole "good faith" game, you actually need good faith.

You're all privacy groupies. You don't know anything about actual privacy. You're just an outrage squad. You know it. I know it. But you're performing for some absent audience that supposedly can't tell.

Fine, this site is yours. Keep it. I'll go play with the shellfish.

Dev tools absolutely cannot break your browser if you 'do things wrong'.

Hmm, I've never had devtools break my browser despite using it fairly extensively. I think I confused myself once by forgetting about a local override I had turned on, or accidentally cleared more cookies than I intended to, but that's about it.

I have had locally compiled builds break my profile data once or twice, but that's a seperate issue.

You can still delete per site cookies in the preferences no?

Or also twitter, where it is unusable without logging in/blocking cookies (Which you can do from the preferences)

The change is for clearing individual cookies. You can still clear cookies per site.

Don't know if the same government but I can't access the site to pay the taxes which I have to pay monthly without clearing cookies.

> where I'm not sure it really ever made sense to include in the first place.

So move it somewhere where it makes more sense.

> Truly, editing/deleting individual cookies isn't something any regular user ever needs to do

No true Scotsman? If the user needs to do this, they're automatically not a regular user, or what?

Anyway, hard disagree.

> So move it somewhere where it makes more sense.

>> All the functionality is already built into Chrome right here: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/devtools/storage/cookies/

It can't both be redundant and be solved by moving one of the interfaces somewhere else. Either you meant to say it's not redundant and is needed but didn't list any reasons why you think this or your idea of simply moving the redundant interface elsewhere doesn't change the point made as it'd still be rudundant and not needed, just elsewhere.

> No true Scotsman? If the user needs to do this, they're automatically not a regular user, or what?

The "No true Scotsman" fallacy comes after redefining the group once a valid counterexample from the original group is defined. It's not a fallacy in itself just to claim a group has an attribute, the claim is still falsifiable and testable by bringing forth the counter case to why a non-developer needs or wants to use a separate settings UI for it. "non-devoloper" wording chosen instead of "regular user" particularly because the ability is still in the developer UI and maybe that'll make the claim about "regular users" a little more defined.

If this were disabling the ability for users to clear cookies for a single site I'd hard disagree but I'm wracking my brain to find a realistic case a non-developer user needs/wants to view and clear individual cookies instead of site based cookies or all cached objects for that specific page. It's seemingly by definition only useful when identifying and fixing bugs from reviewing the source/dev console logs and "clear the cookies for the specific site" is already seemingly rare enough for a user to be told to do by generic troubleshooting. If being told to do it by a developer or support agent the console is still there and again I think it's fair to say we are veering far from typical things that user cares to have in a settings UI vs where it is in the dev console.

> It can't both be redundant and be solved by moving one of the interfaces somewhere else. Either you meant to say it's not redundant [...]

I never said it was redundant. Perhaps you mixed me with someone else?

Regardless of how you call the fallacy, I think there still is one since the vagueness of the term "regular user" seems to implicitly define out the users that would need to access the cookie dialogue.

If the wording is switched to "non-developer", then I once again disagree with this conclusion. Non-developers should definitely retain the ability to view, edit and delete their cookies.

I view this mostly as a matter of power. Yes, non-developers won't be editing or deleting individual cookies most of the time. However, if a website starts misbehaving and attempts to seize control of some part of experience from the end user, the end user must have the ability to counter that.

Having the ability to delete and edit pieces of information stored by websites on the user agent is a crucial part of that. If you take this ability away, then you ever so slightly took control out of the hands of the end user. In the end, you are making the user powerless and submitting them under your control.

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