NoScript goes a pretty long way to making the web usable again, especially on mobile (attn web developers: don't like people using noscript? it's your fault. fix it.). There's also this, although I can't vouch for it personally: https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/
(There is also "Fanboy’s Annoyance", but it blocks more than just cookie notifications. For example, it blocks social media share buttons which I use a lot. So I don't use it.)
I use it on firefox and it works very well. I think it doesn't support every website out of the box, but I've never came across one that it didn't work well on.
The prompts were turning me crazy especially since I use a few privacy extensions that made it impossible for the websites to remember my settings. It meant even browsing the same website lead to one consent form per page I clicked...
> Please just let me opt out of this cookie consent idiocy.
This addon [1] will let you do just that. You can configure it to tell all sites to slurp as much of your data as they want, if that's what you prefer.
> How are we making anything better with all these cookie consent pop ups?
"We" are giving people back control over what happens with information about them. This is widely considered a good idea, though perhaps not near you ;) The pop-up part can be automated by software if you prefer a one-size-fits-all configuration, as described above.
> Add-ons like those should scare you because they give a small third party free access to every web site you visit.
I think that they should scare you because they're, not surreptitiously but by design, consenting to innumerable requests to share your data without your interaction; but I guess to each their own scariness.
I find that GDPR compliant resources to be more trustworthy, even though I am in the US. It shows a desire to comply with regulations that provide me with information I otherwise would not be privy too. Like, how the cookies are being used. This is the most important part, for me, because usually by reading a platforms "cookie spiel" you can usually get a feel for the companies culture with regards to privacy and determine their ad network affiliations.
A cookie policy with lots of legal jargon that's 5 pages long and impossible to understand is probably hiding the fact that the visitors are the only product of that platform.
On the other hand, if the cookie policy is straightforward, honest, and transparent I will be more likely to engage with that platform, even if I am the product. Less information will never make you safer or more well equipped. Especially in cyber space.
Think of it like getting a contractor for your house. Do you want the guy from Craigslist who only takes cash or do you want the licensed journeyman with insurance who invested in making sure he is well equipped and minimally liable?
Provider that gives me 1-5 check marks to make once (and where the default settings are "off"?) - trustworthy. Anything like Verizon properties which gives an intentionally bad UX with thousands of clicks, information overload, dark patterns where 'accept' = 'accept all' even when you unchecked some boxes.. all this tells me I don't want to support this site.
And gdpr does much more, I don't think Google and Facebook exports used to really be possible so easily.
I hope it's teaching us that the next time some ivory tower bureaucrats suggest something, we'll assume they're full of shit and make it a lot harder for them to pull this kind of garbage.
That's not the law, that's the implementation that's the issue. The same EU body quoted above has passed the message for a long time that that's not needed eg for purely technical cookies.
If your takeaway is that GDPR is the problem in this equation, I can do nothing other than strongly disagree. It quite possibly could be better drafted, but oh boy is personal data hoarding by companies a huge problem, and would certainly not be lesser without oversight.
Why do you think "personal data hoarding" a huge problem?
I see it as MY data and YOUR data is pretty worthless. Aggregate data has value, but then that doesn't contain much insight about any individual at all.
Isn't it true that the more people's data you have, the less it says about any individual?
Because the alternative is to just accept all or accept none; the publishers do not want an accept none by default because that means they get no relevant data anymore. The consumers do not want accept all because that's what the GDPR is about in the first place.
No, it isn't required for sites to have a popup. There's a thousand less shitty ways web devs could implement this, up to and including just not using 3rd party cookies. But that's harrrrrrrrrd so we turned the web into a huge mess of crap.
Well, technically speaking you can get away with having no cookie pop if you ONLY use "strictly neccessary" cookies. Even if you use cookies to remember the user's preferences that make using your site a more enjoyable experience you have to have a cookie banner.
The link you provide is not a DPA nor a EU body. I would advise getting better sources, as cookies to remember user preferences are allowed without consent.
