Cookies and Cream
Cookies and Cream
If you have browsed the tech news recently, you probably saw a pair of stories about an important open source browser the world knows as Firefox. If it matters to you, I will add that, despite the logo, a Firefox is really not supposed to be a fox at all but is actually a red panda. The news stories? The first was that Firefox just had its ninth birthday. The browser was born when the Mozilla Foundation (remnants of the once great Netscape Communications Corp.) realized its old Mozilla browser was getting too bloated and wanted a fresh start.
If you have browsed the tech news recently, you probably saw a pair of stories about an important open source browser the world knows as Firefox. If it matters to you, I will add that, despite the logo, a Firefox is really not supposed to be a fox at all but is actually a red panda. The news stories? The first was that Firefox just had its ninth birthday. The browser was born when the Mozilla Foundation [1] (remnants of the once great Netscape Communications Corp.) realized its old Mozilla browser was getting too bloated and wanted a fresh start.
The second item in the news was that Firefox is wavering in its previously announced goal to start blocking third-party cookies by default. This plan received the strongest endorsements from privacy groups, but as you might predict, the online ad industry didn't like it one bit. In fact, I would way, the scornful rhetoric of the ad industry spokesmen made the FUD of the Microsoft era seem positively tame.
For a little background, third-party cookies are cookies that get placed on your computer, even though they aren't related to the website you are visiting. In other words, you have taken no action to start a relationship with the vendor who owns a third-party cookie – it is just left on your computer because you visited a site that has an advertising deal with the vendor.
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