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Four iOS Safari Extensions to Make the Web Less Annoying

Constant pop-ups, annoying forms, and frustrating website behaviors can make browsing and using the web an unpleasant experience. Thankfully on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, several Safari extensions help turn the experience around.

No More Cookies

Super Agent for Safari is an extension that automatically fills out the cookies consent form on each website you visit, meaning you'll no longer see those annoying pop-ups. The Super Agent for Safari app lets you customize how you would like websites to use cookies.

Users can choose whether they want to accept or reject advertising, functional, performance, and other cookies. The settings are applied universally to all websites.

Super Agent for Safari is free with no in-app subscription and can be found in the App Store .

'Open in App?' No Thanks.

Banish, a relatively new Safari extension on the ‌App Store‌ gets rid of such website notifications . Banish is a one-time purchase of $2 with no in-app subscription and can be found in the App Store .

StopTheMadness, Literally

• Bypassing Google's AMP webpages
• Protects the ability to copy, cut, and paste on websites
• Gets rid of link trackers and clickjacking in Google search results, and others
• Stop autoplaying videos
• Stop all audio and video on websites

StopTheMadness is a one-time purchase of $7.99 with no in-app subscription and can be found in the App Store .

Dark Mode For All

Noir is a Safari extension that automatically turns a website into dark mode, even if it doesn’t support it. Noir only kicks in if the website doesn’t have a native dark mode theme built-in. This can be especially helpful when your phone is in dark mode, but a website isn’t and you’re suddenly blinded by a bright white webpage.

Noir is a $2.99 purchase with no in-app subscription and can be found in the App Store .

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7 browser extensions to auto accept or deny cookie pop-ups

In 2018, the European Union law known as the General Data Protection Regulation took effect to protect the data and privacy of citizens in EU member states. The intent was noble, but this led to websites prompting you with pop-ups to ask permission to use tracking cookies.

Even today, much to the chagrin of online users worldwide, you’ll need to click ‘yes’ on a cookie consent popup or customize your cookie preferences before you can access websites. What if, you may wonder, you can just automatically accept or deny these consent requests? You can. Just install and use one of the seven browser extensions/addons below.

But before you install these browser extensions, do take some time to learn about cookies and how they affect your data and privacy. Consider turning off cookies altogether or switching to a privacy-focused browser like Brave . Also read the terms of use provided by these browser extensions. Look for any data collection they may do regarding your behavior in exchange for the convenience they provide.

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Consent-O-Matic

Not long after the GDPR was enforced, some websites started to skirt the rules, so they could still end up tracking you and collecting your data using a dark pattern design . Consent-O-Matic claims it can help you avoid these patterns and will auto submit your preferred cookie settings for you.

Download : Firefox , Chrome , Safari

With iOS 15, Safari now has proper support for third-party web extensions that add additional functionality to Apple’s web browser. As for dealing with cookie consent pop-ups, iPhone and iPad users can check out Super Agent. It claims to be fast and secure, and it also lets you customize which cookies to auto accept or deny. It also has a warning feature that informs you of websites that don’t respect your cookie preferences.

Download : Firefox , Chrome , Edge , Safari

I Don’t Care About Cookies

This extension claims it can remove cookie warnings from almost every website out there, which means no more additional clicking for you. Whenever possible, I Don’t Care About Cookies simply hides the popups. It only automatically accepts cookies if websites need them to function correctly. Or it may accept all cookies if it’s the easier option.

Download : Firefox , Chrome , Opera , Edge

Consent Manager by PrivacyCloud

Consent Manager works by declining all requests for cookie consent by omission. That’s it; no configuration whatsoever. It simply says no to all tracking cookies. Your browsing experience may vary when using the extension though, as it has mixed reviews from users who claim it doesn’t work.

Download : Firefox , Chrome

Ninja Cookie

Ninja Cookie offers similar functionality as I Don’t Care About Cookies and Consent Manager. It will opt you out of non-essentially cookies automatically. The extension is free, but there’s also a pay-what-you-want premium version with a few more features.

Download : Firefox , Chrome , Opera , Safari , Edge

uBlock Origin

The general-purpose blocker uBlock Origin already works wonders in removing intrusive ads from your web browsing experience. With a little adjustment in the settings, you can also include consent pop-ups to uBlock Origin’s list of annoyances to block. Just go to Settings > Filter Lists > Annoyances, and then enable EasyList Cookie.

Download : Chrome , Edge , Firefox , Opera

CookieEnforcer

Researchers from Google and the University of Wisconsin-Madison developed a browser extension called CookieEnforcer for auto rejecting optional cookies. It uses a machine-learning model to identify where the cookie consent popup is on a website, navigate through its menus, and figure out which options are optional and can be rejected.

The AI can do all this with minimal impact on the user experience, which is a godsend compared to the 12 clicks that the researchers noted are the average times needed to disable optional cookies manually. Sadly, this browser extension isn’t publicly available yet, with no release date for a general release announced either.

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How To : Block Those Annoying Cookie Consent Notices from Appearing on Websites in Safari

As a means to combat annoying and intrusive advertisements in Safari , Apple added native support for content blockers on the iPhone. Instead of being bombarded by notifications, banners, and pop-ups, content blockers prevent them from opening, which can also be said about those annoying cookie consent notices that many websites now have.

Anytime you visit a website, a cookie file is saved on your device that contains information about the website and you, including a unique ID and personally identifiable information such as your name, email address, and phone number. The website then uses this cookie whenever you visit the next time so that they can uniquely tailor this experience to you. For example, if you've placed a few things in your shopping cart, this information is stored in your cookies, so the next time you go to the website, these products may still be in your cart.

Not everyone is okay with how companies track important information via cookies. So the European Union passed a law called the GDPR , which essentially requires websites to get your consent before collecting your data. That's why you may see websites asking for permission to your cookies with annoying banners that sometimes take up the entire page.

• Don't Miss: How to Block Popups in Safari on Your iPhone

Not every cookie consent banner is the same, however. On some websites, you must accept all cookies to continue using them. On others, you have choices for which types of cookies to allow. Some allow you to ignore the banner and won't collect your information. And then there are websites that have cookie consent banners to let you know about their cookie policy, and it will still collect your information even if you ignore it.

If you don't care about cookie policies, you probably ignore these banners. And if you do, content blockers can help you block these banners so that they don't appear in the first place. Although the website may still collect your information, you no longer have to worry about these cookie consent notices filling up your page. And as a bonus, it won't block ads so that you can continue to support the sites you visit.

Step 1: Install the 'Hush for Safari' App

"Hush for Safari," created by developer Oblador AB , is a simple yet powerful service that blocks those annoying consent notices asking you to accept cookies whenever you visit a new website. The app works as a content blocker (without blocking ads), so it simply guides Safari to hide these notifications without asking for access to your private information, unlike other blockers.

You can check out its App Store listing or even its source code to ensure that they're not tracking or collecting your data.

• App Store Link: Hush for Safari (free)

Step 2: Add It to Safari's Content Blockers

Before you can use Hush for Safari, you must first toggle it on as a Safari content blocker. To do so, launch the Settings app and go into "Safari." Next, scroll down and tap on "Content Blockers" under General . If you don't see "Content Blockers," it's because you don't have a content blocker installed on your iPhone (so make sure Hush has downloaded all the way).

In Content Blockers , you should see Hush for Safari listed as "Hush." Tap on its toggle to enable it. You don't even need to open the app itself, although you should see whether it's enabled or disabled if you do.

Step 3: Browse Safari Without Cookie Consent Notices

Now, whenever you visit a new website, i.e., a website you have never visited before, you should no longer see cookie consent notices. Below you can see the European Space Agency website with a cookie consent notice (left) and without one when Hush for Safari is enabled (right).

In case you want cookie consent notices back, to see which websites track your cookies, go back to Settings –> Safari –> Content Blockers, then toggle off Hush.

Just updated your iPhone? You'll find new features for Podcasts, News, Books, and TV, as well as important security improvements and fresh wallpapers. Find out what's new and changed on your iPhone with the iOS 17.5 update.

Hush blocks this webpage. ??

Why didn't the bureaucrats who dream up their wonderful-make-our-lives-better-by-making-them-more-complicated-and-insufferable stuff make an exception for having websites that have THREE cookies only - username and password and a third one that I suppose might be useful for this - a "areYouRegisted" flag, a "doYouWantTwoFactorAuthenticationAndWhichEmailAddressToUseForIt", "preferredDisplayName", "preferredLanguage" - something. Limit these to whatever a reasonable length would be (20 Unicode characters probably - make that 64 or 128 bytes). I guess you might want to require the "sign up page" to include a warning, "This website will use a cookie to store your username and password ONLY".

Yes, it could maybe be abused. But the system already CAN be abused (that's why the GDRF exists, right?) Of course, Liberals (capital L only) don't seem to understand the phrase "compliance cost". And the fact that it applies to BOTH "producers" and "consumers" - an "annoyance factor". And before "they" say, "that doesn't matter".. Aren't they the same ones starting to finally whine about screen-time and distractions and such? (Don't get me started on over-signage on US streets possibly CAUSING more accidents.)

(Though it should already have a preferred display name and language. I suppose this would be if you had a website that could function with only making ONE server request - on login, that's it. But the people who hire web programmers don't care about efficiency, and must assume we ALL have OC-768 lines directly into the companies' server farm - and no one else on that farm when your accessing it)

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Best cookie consent pop-up blockers for Apple Safari

The cookie consent pop-blocker extension, Super Agent for Safari, is no longer free to use, it now has a subscription model. Here are some free alternatives that you may want to try instead.

The new Super Agent Unlimited plans start at $1.19 per month, or $11.99 for the annual subscription. There is an option for a one-time fee that costs $29.99. That's a little too expensive for the job it does. While it is a useful tool, the extension is not unique, there are some extensions that do the job perfectly fine, and without a price tag.

Hush is probably the most user-friendly of the choices here, as it has no settings whatsoever. All you need to do is to install the extension, and it will block all cookie warning banners on websites, with no action required from your end. Hush is available for iOS, iPadOS and macOS. It is free and open source , you can download Hush for Safari from the App Store .

Consent-O-Matic

Consent-O-Matic is also quite user-friendly, it requires a one-time permission to allow access to all sites that you visit. This is required for the extension to detect and block the cookie consent pop-ups and save your preference in the cookies. You may optionally choose to allow it to run on specific sites only. Once you have you granted it the permission, it blocks the cookie prompts automatically. The add-on places an icon on Safari's toolbar to indicate whether it blocked the banner or not.

Consent-O-Matic has some options that you may customize, should you want to allow websites access to some data. The add-on blocks these by default, so if you don't plan on letting sites collect tracking data, then you're good to go.

The extension free, open source , and is developed by members of the Aarhus University in Denmark. Download Consent-O-Matic from the App Store. It is also available for Firefox and Chrome .

AdGuard for Safari

uBlock Origin is not available for Apple's Safari browser, which in my opinion, makes AdGuard the best free content blocker for the browser. Aside from its ad blocking capabilities for which it is renowned for, the add-on can also be used to prevent various other annoyances, which includes cookie consent pop-ups.

To do this, first install the app, and run it. Switch to the Filters tab, and scroll down to the Annoyances section, and click on the button next to it to toggle the filter. This will enable several annoyances filters, including one called "AdGuard Cookie Notices filter", that will block the cookie consent pop-ups on web pages.

Download AdGuard for Safari for free from the App Store, the extension is open source .

Note: If you find that Safari extensions are not working properly after an OS update, you may want to reinstall the add-on. It happens to me on iOS with AdGuard failing to block ads, this is a known problem with the OS.

Of course, you can also switch from Safari to a different browser like Firefox , Brave or Vivaldi, to block cookie dialogs and banners automatically once you enable the option. Moving to one of these browsers will also allow you to use uBlock Origin, and various other benefits that you may find useful.

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Sadly there has been little activity on the github page for the extension “I still don’t care about cookies” but I believe someone (Sam-Spencer) is working on a safari version or something and is in testing. I don’t have any association with any apple product of relevancy so I can’t comment but I guess it would be nice if it did make it’s way to apple products.

Thank you @Ashwin for letting us now all these curious things about the Apple world! :]

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I flew to England last year, and boy were my arms tired! Tired of clicking through cookie pop-ups on every website I visited, that is. 

Surely you know what I’m talking about: those banners or pop-ups that often appear, unbidden, when you go to a website you’ve never been to before. They’re supposed to tell you that a website is tracking you using tiny pieces of code called cookies and give you a way to refuse those cookies, as required by law in certain places (England, for instance). What the pop-ups usually do is tell you the page you’re visiting uses cookies to give you a better experience but you can — and then at this point you’ve probably stopped reading the fine print and just hit the big bright button that says “ACCEPT” because you don’t have time for this. Now you’ve done exactly what the website wants you to do: agreed to be tracked.

“You’re forced to spend excess time having to engage with this thing, to hunt and find the setting that you may wish is just readily available to you,” Jennifer King, privacy and data policy fellow at the Stanford University Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, told Recode. “They are annoying.”

If you’re sick of it being such a chore to preserve your privacy, I have some good news for you: There are ways to reject cookies and block those pop-ups from appearing at all. A new one, called Never-Consent, was announced today. It comes to us from Ghostery, which specializes in privacy-centric web tools. If it does as Ghostery promises, it will make preserving your privacy as easy and fast as it is to click “accept” on those pop-ups now. The cost will be the “personalized” experience that marketers say their cookies provide.

While some cookies are necessary for a website to function and do, in fact, make your experience better, a lot of them are simply there to track you across the internet and collect data about you, usually by companies you had no idea were embedded in that website in the first place. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was supposed to tell users that they were being tracked and give them a way to opt out of that tracking.

GDPR is well-meaning in theory. But in practice, many companies have perverted the rules to give us these deceivingly worded banners that no one understands and everyone hates. If you’re looking for examples of dark patterns , or designs meant to manipulate people into doing or choosing certain things, you can usually find them in your nearest cookie consent pop-up. 

“They make it really super easy to click the button that says ‘Yes, I accept all forms of tracking,’ and they make it super hard to say no,” said Harry Brignull, who coined the term “dark patterns” and tracks them on his website . “For example, perhaps they’ll have a maze of menus and dozens of things to click on different pages. None of this stuff really needs to exist — its only purpose is to trick you or frustrate you into giving up and just clicking the big shiny accept button.”

You may have noticed that a lot of US-based websites have them, too. Maybe you’ve also noticed that many more of them have added banners in the last few years. That’s probably because of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which took effect in the beginning of 2020. CCPA says websites must at least tell users that they’re being tracked. Unlike GDPR, it doesn’t require sites to give users an option to reject cookies unless the users are under 16 years old. Rather than try to figure out the relevant details — which visitors are teens and which are adults, which users are Europe-based and which aren’t, and which users are in California and which aren’t — many sites have just gone with an opt-in consent banner to cover their bases. And then most of them make rejecting cookies the path of most resistance.

That’s where Never-Consent comes in. It both blocks pop-ups and rejects cookies automatically. Never-Consent will be added to Ghostery’s browser extension in the coming weeks. All you have to do is install the extension and it will do the work for you, the company says.

Krzysztof Modras, director of engineering and product at Ghostery, said that the company basically looked at about 100 existing cookie consent frameworks and figured out a way to automatically reject and block them. The Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe’s framework , for example, is on about 80 percent of European websites, but it was also recently found to be in violation of the GDPR. (Oops!) That means there may be some sites that slip by if they’re not using a third-party cookie consent mechanism known to Ghostery. But users can report those sites to Ghostery, and those frameworks will be added.

There are a few other extensions you can try that do something similar to Never-Consent. If you don’t want to bother with finding and installing browser extensions — and Brignull points out that browser extensions and the companies that make them can also be tracking you, so be careful whom you trust — you can always use a browser that blocks tracking cookies by default. At this point, almost all of them do except Chrome , which is by far the most popular and also made by a company with a vested interest in tracking you across the internet, which is surely a coincidence.

There’s also Global Privacy Control , which automatically tells websites not to sell or share a user’s data. But GPC isn’t available on all browsers (Chrome and Safari, most notably), and websites are only compelled to respect it for California’s users, per the CCPA. The United Kingdom is working on ways to get rid of cookie pop-ups and replace them with a browser-based tool as well. Ghostery’s extension blocked third-party cookies before Never-Consent. But now you’ll also be able to actively tell those websites you don’t want to be tracked in addition to passively blocking their cookies.

“I think the big picture is that it is important to have a tool that not only blocks these things but actively sends a no consent back to the publishers,” Jean-Paul Schmetz, CEO of Ghostery, said.

How much does that really matter to websites that deploy pop-ups designed to confuse and annoy you into submission? I’m not so sure. Especially if, like me, you live in a place that doesn’t have privacy laws requiring companies to respect your preferences. But at the very least, it’ll give you a sense of advocating for yourself.

Just don’t think that your days of annoying pop-ups or being tracked are over forever. Companies are using them more and more to encourage you to sign up for newsletters and marketing emails. That’s their way of still collecting data about you now that cookies are on their way out. As we’ve seen from the proliferation of cookie pop-ups, companies are always looking for — and will likely find — a new way to track you as their current way gets shut down. 

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Why do you need it?

Due to eu regulations and increased awareness of online privacy, every website must get user's permission before installing tracking cookies. if you surf anonymously or if you delete cookies automatically every time you close the browser, websites will ask for that permission again and again, and it will soon become very irritating to click the same i agree buttons every day. this browser extension removes cookie warnings from almost all websites and saves you thousands of unnecessary clicks in most cases, it just blocks or hides cookie related pop-ups. when it's needed for the website to work properly, it will automatically accept the cookie policy for you (sometimes it will accept all and sometimes only necessary cookie categories, depending on what's easier to do). it doesn't delete cookies. please educate yourself about cookie related privacy issues and ways to protect yourself and your data. for example, you can block 3rd party cookies, install ad blocking extensions and then block tracking tools, delete browsing data regularly, enable tracking protection in your browser etc..

Firefox instructions FREE

Install the extension into your Firefox browser for free from the official Firefox website .

Chrome instructions FREE

Install the extension into your Chrome / Yandex / Brave / Kiwi browser for free from the Chrome Web Store .

Edge instructions FREE

Install the extension into your Edge browser for free from Edge Add-ons .

Opera instructions FREE

Install the extension into your Opera / Vivaldi browser for free from the official Opera website .

Pale Moon instructions FREE

Install the extension into your Pale Moon / Waterfox browser for free from the Pale Moon addon repository .

Adblock Plus, AdBlock and uBlock Origin FREE

Safari and other browser users can install the filter list into their favorite ad blocker extension. Add to Adblock Plus or download the list .

Be aware that the filter list is not as effective as a browser extension but it will hide most cookie warnings.

My other extensions:

→ Autoplay No More Firefox / Chrome / Yandex / Edge / Brave / Kiwi / Opera / Vivaldi

→ Restricted Mode: On Firefox / Chrome / Yandex / Edge / Brave / Kiwi / Opera / Vivaldi

→ Youtube's Annotations No More Firefox / Chrome / Yandex / Edge / Brave / Kiwi / Opera / Vivaldi

→ Youtube Skip Sign-in Firefox / Chrome / Yandex / Edge / Brave / Kiwi / Opera / Vivaldi

This extension is promoted by:

I am Daniel from Croatia. I like foreign languages, travelling, nature, permaculture, gardening, science, walking, music, books, european films, documentaries, comedy, talking to strangers, playing antichess... You name it. Everything except cookie warnings I guess.

I am also a web developer (PHP and everything related). If you're looking for one, you can check my LinkedIn profile to see if I match your criteria.

If you want to say hello or well done, have a bug to report or a suggestion, feel free to contact me .

A clever new browser extension eliminates one of the worst problems with the web

Reject optional cookies automatically with the CookieEnforcer browser extension

A team of academics has developed a new web browser extension that rejects cookie consent pop-ups automatically.

Developed by researchers from Google and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the CookieEnforcer extension navigates through the labyrinth of menus that conceal the option to reject non-essential cookies on the user’s behalf.

As explained in a paper published earlier this month, the extension analyzes the rendering pattern of HTML elements to identify cookie notices, before mapping out the necessary sequence of clicks. An evaluation of its accuracy found the extension to be effective in 91% of cases.

The big cookie debate

The implementation of third-party cookies, which are used to track people across the web to inform targeted advertising efforts, has long been the subject of fierce debate.

On one side, there are companies like Google, which argue that tracking technologies prop up business models that guarantee universal access to web services and content. But on the other side are those that believe our privacy is too great a price to pay, and that there are ways to replumb the economic engine of the web.

In an effort to increase the level of transparency around data collection practices, regulations like GDPR were implemented across the world, requiring websites to request explicit consent from the user. But whether these rules resulted in a net gain from a privacy perspective is unclear.

“Cookie notices inform users about the type of cookies the website maintains, their purpose and, in many cases, the options to control them. However, in their current forms, cookie notices suffer from usability issues,” the researchers explain.

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> Google attacked over latest plan to replace tracking cookies > The inside story of the browser wars, told by a veteran > Google will stop tracking your across Android, but not any time soon

“Prior work has shown that these notices use dark patterns to manipulate users into making website-friendly choices which put users’ privacy at risk.”

Earlier this year, both Facebook and Google were slapped with multi-million-euro fines by the French data protection regulator over precisely this practice, which makes the latter’s participation in the development of CookieEnforcer deliciously ironic.

In lieu of new regulation that shields against manipulative behavior of this sort, or bans the use of cookies outright, CookieEnforcer eliminates the friction associated with locating the option to reject third-party cookies.

Unfortunately, the extension is not yet publicly available. The research team says it is preparing a general release, but has not yet offered a specific timeline.

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Joel Khalili is the News and Features Editor at TechRadar Pro, covering cybersecurity, data privacy, cloud, AI, blockchain, internet infrastructure, 5G, data storage and computing. He's responsible for curating our news content, as well as commissioning and producing features on the technologies that are transforming the way the world does business.

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• 3 One of the biggest credit card companies is quietly introducing a secret AI weapon to combat billion-dollar financial fraud — Visa will verify every single transaction in real time to eliminate rampant enumeration attacks
• 4 Mobile industry is quietly preparing for the biggest change to your smartphone in a decade — iSIM will hasten the end of SIM cards and allow networks to preload plans on devices
• 5 Rural matters: Putting the countryside at the heart of Vodafone’s mission

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Tired of Nonstop Cookie Popups? Dismiss Them Automatically with These Extensions

The European Union has for many years required that websites—at least those serving European users—gain informed consent before storing the personal data of those users. That data includes cookies , which are bits of information stored in Web browsers that websites can read and write. Cookies are widely used for remembering login information, saving user account information, maintaining a shopping cart, and other legitimate purposes. However, they’re also used to target advertising at you by tracking your behavior across websites, which many people consider to be an abuse of user privacy. Hence the EU’s ePrivacy Directive , which resulted in the proliferation of cookie consent popups like this one.

Websites that rely on advertising or user tracking prefer that everyone click Accept All, but because of the EU requirement for informed consent, they have to tell you more about the cookies they use, explain why they want to use them, and allow you to reject types of cookies. Clicking Customize in the cookie consent popup above presents this expanded view. So many details!

On the one hand, thanks to the EU for working to safeguard user privacy. Without laws like the ePrivacy Directive and the overarching General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Web would be even more of a sausage factory that grinds up and sells our personal data.

On the other hand, could cookie consent popups on nearly every website be any more annoying?!? While it’s a nice idea that we provide informed consent for cookies, few people have the time and inclination to read all this and make an informed decision. If you’re like us, you’re probably mashing Reject All as fast as you can. And even that is more effort than you’d prefer to expend.

Happily, there are Web browser extensions that can simplify your life, responding to cookie consent popups automatically using preferences you set once. Why can’t Web browsers do this themselves? They could, and the privacy-focused Brave does , but the W3C’s Platform for Privacy Preferences working group’s recommendations for standardizing behavior around privacy were ignored by browser makers and dropped back in 2006.

Two browser extensions we’ve tested successfully in multiple Mac browsers are Consent-O-Matic and Super Agent . They work by learning how to interact with the common consent popups (many of which come from Consent Management Platforms like Osano and CookieYes ) and automatically clicking the switches to match your preferences. More specifically, the Hush extension blocks cookie consent popups in Safari on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Consent-O-Matic

The open-source Consent-O-Matic is free from privacy researchers at Aarhus University. It comes as a Chrome extension that works with Google Chrome (and other Chromium browsers like Arc, Brave, and Edge, shown below), as an add-on for Firefox, and as an extension for Safari on the Mac and Safari in iOS and iPadOS. Consent-O-Matic works reasonably well on the Mac; in testing, it wasn’t effective enough in Safari on the iPhone and iPad to be worth installing. Installation and interface vary by browser—the Chrome extension is shown below.

By default, Consent-O-Matic allows no cookies, though we recommend enabling the Preferences and Functionality option and, if you’re feeling generous toward websites, the Performance and Analytics option. The first option improves your experience on any site where it’s helpful for it to remember information about you, and the second allows the website admins to collect metrics on how the site is being used. If a site doesn’t work correctly with Consent-O-Matic enabled, you can turn off the extension for just that site. In the Display preferences, you can choose whether Consent-O-Matic minimizes consent popups or hides them entirely, and on the About screen, you’ll see how many clicks it has saved you.

Super Agent

Super Agent seems to focus its paid plans on its version for the iPhone and iPad, but we didn’t find it effective enough there to install. On the Mac, however, Super Agent is free and works well, perhaps a bit more so than Consent-O-Matic. It’s available as a Chrome extension for Google Chrome and other Chromium browsers, as a Firefox add-on, and as a Safari extension. Installation and interface vary by browser—the Chrome extension is shown below.

Your first task in Super Agent is to set your preferences for cookies to accept. Again, we recommend enabling Functional cookies; turn on Performance cookies if you wish. Leave Advertising and Other cookies off.

Although it’s not required, you can create a Super Agent account and enable the Consent Trail switch to see a list of the sites whose cookie consent popups Super Agent filled out for you. It’s end-to-end encrypted so that only you can see the data, but if you’re particularly concerned about privacy, don’t turn it on.

What about the iPhone and iPad, or those who care only about Safari on the Mac? We recommend Joel Arvidsson’s Hush , which bills itself as a nag blocker. It’s a free download from the App Store, and once it’s on your device, you enable it in Settings > Safari > Extensions > Hush (iOS/iPadOS) or Safari > Settings > Extensions (Mac).

That’s it. From then on, it silently blocks cookie consent popups—it doesn’t attempt to register your preferences like Consent-O-Matic and Super Agent. As a result, it might cause problems if a site requires that you accept some cookies for it to function correctly. We haven’t encountered such a site yet, but it’s not impossible. If that happens on an iPhone or iPad, tap the A A button in the Safari address bar and then Turn On Content Blockers; on the Mac, choose View > Reload Without Content Blockers.

The Web is an ever-evolving place, so there’s no guarantee that these extensions will respond to or block every cookie consent popup. But you can report missed sites to the Content-O-Matic and Super Agent developers, and Joel Arvidsson releases regular updates to block more nags and fix partially broken websites.

If you use only Safari for Web browsing, Hush could be all you need on all your Apple devices. Those who rely on other Web browsers on the Mac can pick either Consent-O-Matic or Super Agent to supplement Hush on the iPhone and iPad.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Pla2na)

Social Media: If you’re as annoyed as we are by constant cookie consent popups on seemingly every website these days, check out our recommendations for browser extensions that can banish them for good.

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Are you sick of dealing with labyrinthine cookie consent popups just to navigate the web without being tracked? Well, researchers from Aarhus University, Denmark, have created a browser extension that automatically rejects them for you.

Consent-O-Matic is free and available for Mozilla Firefox , Google Chrome and other chromium-based browsers, and Safari for macOS and iOS. The browser extension already had 22,000 test users worldwide before becoming publically available.

“The way it works is that we manually analyze a pop-up to see how it is designed, and then we write the code to click on buttons and check boxes,” Clemens Nylandsted Klokmose, a Consent-O-Matic developer and associate professor in the Department of Computer Science, said in a statement . “Sometimes a website might have done things differently, and in that case, we will always try to submit the most privacy preserving settings. Websites might also use a pop-up that we haven’t seen yet, which means Consent-O-Matic can’t detect it.”

“The code for Consent-O-Matic is available open-source on  Github […], so if anyone want to have a look, or contribute with new rules for a pop-up, they can do that.”

Amazing as this is, it’s unfortunate that the software even needs to exist. “People should have control over their personal data , but the way these consent pop-ups are designed make it difficult. Clicking through multiple screens and toggling hundreds of sliders for every website you visit gets exhausting and annoying, so it’s easier to just hit the big green button,” Midas Nouwens, a Consent-O-Matic developer and assistant professor in the Department of Digital Design & Information Studies, explained. “We built Consent-O-Matic to let people exercise their digital rights, and make it as easy as possible.”

Indeed, a 2020 paper co-authored by Nouwens highlights the often shady practices of consent management platforms (CMPs).

“The results of our empirical survey of CMPs today illustrates the extent to which illegal practices prevail, with vendors of CMPs turning a blind eye to – or worse, incentivising –   clearly illegal configurations of their systems,” the authors write . “Enforcement in this area is sorely lacking.”

“Interface designs that try to guide end-users into desired behavior through malicious interaction flows are referred to as ‘dark patterns’,” the authors explain, adding that “A core takeaway from the user study is that placing controls or information below the first layer renders it effectively ignored.”

It seems that CMPs are already taking notice and trying to push back, with OneTrust LLC being granted a patent on September 6, 2022, for “Data processing systems and methods for detecting tools for the automatic blocking of consent requests.”

“The patent is pretty hilarious. The idea it is premised on seems to be that a refusal of consent has to have the same high standards as a granting of consent […] But that's simply incorrect,” Michael Veale, a professor of digital rights and privacy at UCL Laws, told Motherboard . “Furthermore, data protection law specifically recognises that an individual 'may exercise his or her right to object by automated means using technical specifications.”

"The entire adtech industry's strategy over recent years has been to attempt to misinterpret regulation to make consent seem like a joke,” Veale explained. “The legal reality is that this is not consent, and that such practices are themselves illegal. Data protection authorities are finally waking up to that.”

In a world where your personal data can be sold up to 987 times a day in split-second advertisement auctions, it’s more important than ever to get clued up on cybersecurity and protect yourself.

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Repository for the CookieBlock browser extension, which automatically enforces user privacy policy on browser cookies.

dibollinger/CookieBlock

Folders and files, repository files navigation, cookieblock browser extension.

CookieBlock is a browser extension that automatically enforces your GDPR consent preferences for browser cookies. It classifies cookies on-the-fly into four distinct categories, and deletes those that the user did not consent to.

This helps enforce user privacy without having to rely on the website hosting the cookies.

Table of Contents

Description, download links, build instructions, how it works, known issues, repository contents.

CookieBlock is an extension that allows the user to apply their cookie consent preferences to any website, no matter if the website has a cookie banner. The user specifies their consent options once when the extension is first installed, and then CookieBlock will try to remove any cookies that do not align with the user's policy as they are being created.

This is intended to ensure that the privacy of the user is preserved. One can reject any of the following categories:

• Functionality Cookies
• Analytical/Statistics Cookies
• Advertising/Tracking Cookies

Note that CookieBlock does not handle the cookie banner itself. In order to remove these annoying banners, we recommend using the Consent-O-Matic extension:

• https://github.com/cavi-au/Consent-O-Matic

CookieBlock is compatible with both Firefox and Chromium-based browsers, and it is available on the following addon stores:

• Firefox Extension
• Chrome Extension
• Edge Extension
• Opera Extension
• Safari does not support cookie processing, so we cannot port CookieBlock to Safari. More info here .

If you would like to submit feedback, or report websites that break because of the addon, you can open an issue on this Github page, or alternatively use this Google Forms document .

No requirements outside of what is contained in this repository is needed to build CookieBlock. Simply pack the contents of the subfolder src into a zip file, and you can install it into your browser. More information here .

Alternatively, you can also install npm and use the web-ext command-line tool, with the command web-ext build .

Reproducing the Model Files

The model files are constructed in the following process:

• Run a webcrawler to collect browser cookies and categories from Consent Management Providers. The relevant code is found here .
• Extract from the resulting database the training cookies, in JSON format. The script for this is found here .
• Use the feature extractor in this repository to transform the cookies JSON into a sparse LibSVM matrix representation.
• Provide this LibSVM with the associated class weights as input to the XGBoost classifier implementation ( xgb_train.py ) found in this repository .
• Execute a secondary Python script ( xgboost_small_dump.py ) to transform the XGBoost model into a minified JSON tree structure. This script produces the four model files forest_class0.json to forest_class3.json .
• Copy these files into the folder:

And replace the existing forest class files. Make sure to preserve their names as is.

The policy enforcement process is a background script that executes every time a cookie event is raised in the browser. If this event indicates that a cookie was added or updated, the extension will store the cookie in a local history of cookie updates, and then perform a classification for that cookie.

The category for each cookie is predicted using a forest of decision trees model trained via the XGBoost classifier, and a set of feature extraction steps. First, the cookie is turned into a numerical vector, which is then provided as an input to the forest of trees. This produces a score for each class, and the best score is the class that gets assigned to the cookie.

Available cookie categories are:

• Strictly Necessary
• Functionality
• Advertising/Tracking

Granularity is intentionally kept low to make the decision as simple as possible for the user. Note that "strictly necessary" cookies cannot be rejected, as this is the class of cookies that is required to make the website work. Without them, essential services such as logins would stop working.

The feature extractor can be found in the subfolder nodejs-feature-extractor/ . This is used to extract the features for the training data set.

For the classifier training, see:

https://github.com/dibollinger/CookieBlock-Consent-Classifier

The classifier is not completely accurate. It may occur that certain functions on some sites are broken because essential cookies get misclassified. This is hard to resolve without gathering more cookie data to train on. As such, the approach has its limits.

To resolve these problems, we maintain a list of known cookie categories. This is a JSON file storing cookie labels for known cookie identifiers. If a cookie is contained in this file. the prediction is skipped, and the known class is applied.

By reporting broken websites, you can help us keep an updated list of cookie exceptions. This makes the extension more useable for everyone while also keeping a high level of privacy.

• /modules/ : Contains code used to perform the feature extraction and prediction.
• /outputs/ : Output directory for the feature extraction.
• /training_data/ : Path for cookie data in json format, used for extracting features.
• /validation_data/ : Path for cookie features, extracted in libsvm format, used for prediction and verifying model accuracy.
• /cli.js : Command-line script used to run the feature extraction.
• logo/ : Contains the original CookieBlock logo files.
• promotional/ : Contains store page text, localizations and promo images used for those stores.
• _locales/ : Contains all human-readable strings displayed on the extension interface, with translations to different languages.
• background/ : JavaScript code and HTML for the extension background process. Currently only Manifest v2 compatible.
• model/ : Extracted CART prediction tree forests, one for each class of cookies.
• resources/ : Resources used with the feature extraction.
• default_config.json : Defines default storage values used in the extension.
• features.json : Defines how the feature extraction operates, and which individual feature are enabled.
• known_cookies.json : Defines default categorizations for some known cookies. Used to grant exceptions to potential website breakages.
• icons/ : Browser extension icons.
• third_party/ : Third party code libraries.
• options/ : Contains the options and first time setup page of the extension.
• popup/ : Contains code for the extension popup.
• credits.txt : Links to the third-party libraries and credits to the respective authors.
• LICENSE : License of the extension.

CookieBlock logo designed by Charmaine Coates.

Czech translation provided by Karel Kubicek.

Japanese translation provided by Shitennouji.

Spanish translation provided by @6ig6oy.

Automated localization in store pages performed using DeepL.

CookieBlock includes code from the following libraries and projects:

• Ported by Xueqiao Xu [email protected]
• Licensed under: PSF LICENSE FOR PYTHON 2.7.2
• Copyright (c) Gianni Chiappetta
• Unlicensed: https://unlicense.org/
• Copyright (c) 2013 pieroxy
• Released under the MIT License
• CSS and HTML code used as basis for the interface.
• Copyright (c) 2020 Janus Bager Kristensen, Rolf Bagge, CAVI

This repository was created as part of the master thesis "Analyzing Cookies Compliance with the GDPR" , which can be found at:

https://www.research-collection.ethz.ch/handle/20.500.11850/477333

as well as the paper "Automating Cookie Consent and GDPR Violation Detection" , which can be found at:

https://karelkubicek.github.io/post/cookieblock.html

Thesis Supervision and co-authors:

• Karel Kubicek
• Dr. Carlos Cotrini
• Prof. Dr. David Basin
• Information Security Group at ETH Zürich

See also the following repositories for other components that were developed as part of the thesis:

• OpenWPM-based Consent Crawler
• Cookie Consent Classifier
• Violation Detection
• Prototype Consent Crawler
• Collected Data

Copyright © 2021-2022 Dino Bollinger, Department of Computer Science at ETH Zürich, Information Security Group

MIT License, see included LICENSE file

Releases 18

Contributors 4.

• JavaScript 87.5%

Introducing Never-Consent by Ghostery - a new feature that removes annoying cookie popups

Key points:.

• Companies collect users’ personal data for tracking and profiling purposes. Consent management allows customers to specify what information they want to share. 
• A consent management platform (CMP) streamlines consent management processes and ensures that businesses are GDPR compliant. 
• Denying cookie tracking while using an ad blocker is important because it tells companies that you don’t want to be tracked. 
• Ghostery’s new feature ‘Never-Consent’ selects optimal privacy settings automatically which stops websites from asking you to accept cookies via intrusive cookie consent popups. It also sends important messages to website owners telling them that you don’t want to be tracked.

‍Never-Consent: Removing Cookie Pop-ups

If you are sick of endless consent pop-ups disrupting your browsing experience, then you’ve come to the right place! 

‍In this article, we’ll discuss how you can remove intrusive cookie popups and express dissent to online tracking using Ghostery’s latest feature ‘Never-Consent.’

Ghostery’s ‘Never-Consent’

Ghostery already blocks all tracking covered by the community block lists, along with new or obscure trackers thanks to our Anti-Tracking feature.

‍However, we believe that website owners and publishers should be aware that Ghostery users do not want to be tracked online which is why we introduced our latest feature ‘Never-Consent.’ 

Ghostery Version 9.6.0

The ‘Never-Consent’ feature is a cookie notification blocker that has been added to the latest version of Ghostery 9.6.0. It removes various annoyances like cookie banners and GDPR popups while ensuring that all tracking is blocked regardless of the way users interact with the website's consent popups.

‘Never-Consent’ is a next-generation cookie blocker

Unlike traditional cookie blockers, our popup blocker ‘Never-Consent’ does not simply block cookies. Instead, it automatically opts out from all tracking using the consent management platforms provided by the visited website. 

This approach not only reduces website breakage, but also sends important messages to website owners saying that Ghostery users don’t want to be tracked. The introduction of ‘Never-Consent’ means: 

• A new tracker category called consent management will be identified by via WhoTracks.Me .
• Ghostery will stop blocking GDPR dialogs but will continue to block cookies and pop-ups which do not cause much breakage.
• Ghostery will start to automatically “click-through” GDPR pop-ups to opt browsers out of all tracking. This will require no user interaction and should significantly reduce breakage while at the same time informing website owners that you don’t want cookies to track you online.

In summary, ‘Never-Consent’ automates the interaction with consent dialogs instead of simply hiding them. This means users will be able to browse the internet peacefully without worrying about cookie consent popup text or privacy violations.

‍Watch a three-website-visit comparison with 'Never-Consent' disabled vs. 'Never-Consent' enabled. Browsing becomes an absolute breeze.

Ghostery for Safari, iOS: Side by side browsing experience with Never-Consent enabled vs. disabled

Ghostery for Safari, MacOS: Browsing experience with Never-Consent enabled vs. disabled

What is consent management?

Third-party companies collect internet users’ browsing data for tracking and profiling purposes. Many people feel uncomfortable knowing that businesses are stealing their personal information online - this is where consent management comes in. 

Consent management is a system that allows customers to specify what personal information they want to share with a business. 

What is CMP?

A CMP (consent management platform) is a software solution that businesses use to gain legal consent from users which allows them to collect their personal data. CMP frameworks are often provided by companies that track users’ activities online. 

Check out this article by Data Privacy Manager to learn more about what a CMP is and why you need it . 

Why is consent management important for businesses?

Consent management should be a top priority for every business as it ensures they meet GDPR regulations by gaining user consent before collecting their data through cookies. 

‍Here are some of the benefits of using a CMP:

• A CMP streamlines the consent management process. This saves companies valuable time and resources and makes it easier to be GDPR compliant.
• People are becoming more concerned about their digital privacy. Privacy statistics show that 79% of Americans are concerned about the protection of their personal data. In Europe, 30% of internet users worry about businesses collecting personal data without their knowledge. 
• Failing to have an effective consent management system in place can harm a brand’s reputation and lead to significant damage and losses. 
• Failing to comply with GDPR can result in large fines. More than 900 fines have been issued in Europe since the GDPR took effect in May 2018 according to Tessian Limited - click here to see some of the biggest GDPR penalties to date.

When is a Cookie Management Platform not needed? 

It is important to be aware that a CMP is only needed because companies use tracking techniques to collect users’ data online. A cookie consent manager is designed to gain consent for tracking and they result in intrusive cookie pop-ups which can harm the browsing experience.  

An easy solution to avoid the use of CMPs (along with annoying cookie consent pop-ups) is to stop online tracking.

Consent management and compliance 

As mentioned above, cookie consent management software helps websites comply with the GDPR's requirement for lawful personal data processing aka tracking. 

Article 7 of the GDPR outlines how a company must collect and store cookie consent from website visitors. Here is a summary of the main requirements under article 7: 

• A website owner must be able to demonstrate that the user has consented to the processing of his or her personal data. 
• The request for consent must also be presented in a clear and user-friendly manner. 
• The user has the right to withdraw their consent at any time and the withdrawal process should be quick and simple. 

When did GDPR come into force? 

The GDPR came into force on the 25th of May 2018 and replaced the 1995 Data Protection Directive. The GDPR framework is enforced by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and has quickly become the de facto standard.

The regulations protect internet users in Europe as there is no tracking by default but this standard is not the same for all countries. In the US, for example, all users are tracked by default, although they can use a CMP to prevent tracking. 

How does GDPR affect the browsing experience?

GDPR laws and regulations were introduced to improve digital privacy by requiring websites to obtain consent before they can collect data through cookies. 

GDPR gives internet users more control over their data but it requires companies to tell users what information cookies collect and how this will be used. This results in lots of annoying cookie pop-ups which can have a negative impact on the browsing experience. 

How to block cookie banners?

A simple solution is to download a browser extension like Ghostery with a built-in cookie blocker that automatically blocks cookie banners and GDPR pop-ups while denying cookies on your browser.

What is a cookie? 

Cookies were first introduced in 1984 as a way of allowing customers to store items in a virtual shopping cart when shopping online. 

Cookies store information from a web browser session on a website and can then be accessed by the user, the site they are on, or third-party companies. Nowadays, cookies are mainly used to analyze users’ behaviors for tracking and profiling purposes.

Types of cookies 

• Settings - used for language/country selection, etc (typically harmless)
• First-party user identifier - used for log-in
• Third-party user identifier - used for tracking
• Pseudo-identifiers - also used for tracking and profiling

What is a cookie consent manager? 

A cookie consent manager is a type of software that allows businesses to obtain cookie consent and manage them on their website. 

Companies must have a cookie consent manager add on that is easy for customers to understand and compliant with all necessary GDPR laws and regulations. Users have the option to accept or deny cookie consent tracking requests. 

Why is it important to deny cookie tracking?

Simply removing a cookie consent pop-up will not stop companies from tracking you as website owners may still think that you’re happy for them to collect your personal data. Companies may also change the way they do user tracking based on this information.  

When you reject cookie trackers, you are telling website owners that you don’t want cookies to track your browsing behavior. This is why Ghostery will always block all tracking, regardless of what you select on the cookie consent manager form. 

TIP : Using a private search engine like Ghostery Private Search is another way to improve your digital privacy as it will not track your search history or store your personal data.

Read our recent blog post if you want to find out more about private search engines and their benefits . 

Third-party cookies

You should always deny third-party cookies. If you don’t, the website you are visiting may sell your personal data to advertisers and third-party companies. Sharing your browsing data with unknown third parties could leave you vulnerable. 

Ghostery's popup blocker feature gives users full control over third-party cookies and allows you to choose which cookies they want to accept when browsing the internet. Our cookies blocker will always automatically block third-party tracking to improve your digital privacy and protect your personal data. 

Automatic CMP solutions 

Automatic CMP solutions and cookie blockers like Ghostery’s ‘Never-Consent’ can remove the frustration of intrusive cookie consent pop-ups and enhance everyday internet usage. An automatic CMP tool will improve your privacy online, reduce clutter on websites, and ensure a smoother browsing experience. 

What is Ghostery? 

In summary, Ghostery: 

• Blocks ads and pop-ups on websites and non-private search engines
• Blocks trackers on websites and non-private search engines
• Prevents private data from leaving your browser
• Prevents profiling

Why should I use Ghostery? 

Ghostery is one of the most advanced ad, tracker and popup blockers on the market. Our browser extension is equipped with AI technology which prevents various tracking techniques to enhance your browsing experience and improve your digital privacy. 

Can I use Ghostery on any browser? 

Ghostery is compatible with all major web browsers and devices, including Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Opera and Safari.

You can use the Ghostery ad and tracker blocker extension in your preferred browser. Alternatively, you can create a more secure and anonymous web browsing experience by downloading Ghostery Private Browser , our private browser fully loaded with the Ghostery Privacy Suite. 

What people are saying about Ghostery

Ghostery is a great free pop-up blocker to block ads. It stands out with its ability to stop trackers and keep your data as safe as ever. Their mobile browsers allow you to browse the internet safer than ever before on your smartphone as well. — Software Testing Help

Ghostery brings strong design and protection together into a smart package that does a good job blocking ads and provides enormous insight into what is tracking you and how. We were also impressed that it earned a perfect score from adblocker-tester and did a good job blocking trackers. — PCMag

Ghostery is a small extension designed to make you invisible to advertisers as you search the web, without slowing down your browser. It comes with a suite of privacy tools designed to anonymise your presence online and dig deeper into useful analytics. — Independent

European GDPR regulations play an essential role in protecting your personal data online. However, the rules have resulted in endless cookie consent pop-ups which can be intrusive and frustrating. 

The good news is that a browser extension like Ghostery can block cookies popups and prevent companies from tracking you on the internet. 

Our latest feature ‘Never-Consent’ is a next-generation cookie blocker that automatically opts out of tracking in cookies and sends important messages to website owners letting them know that you don't want cookies to track your behavior online.

Get in touch if you have any questions - we are always happy to help! 

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Clear the history, cache, and cookies from Safari on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

Learn how to delete your history, cookies, and cache in Settings.

Delete history, cache, and cookies

Clear cookies and cache, but keep your history, delete a website from your history, block cookies, use content blockers.

Go to Settings > Safari.

Tap Clear History and Website Data.

Clearing your history, cookies, and browsing data from Safari won't change your AutoFill information.

When there's no history or website data to clear, the button to clear it turns gray. The button might also be gray if you have web content restrictions set up under Content & Privacy Restrictions in Screen Time .

To visit sites without leaving a history, turn Private Browsing on .

Go to Settings > Safari > Advanced > Website Data.

Tap Remove All Website Data.

When there's no website data to clear, the button to clear it turns gray. The button might also be gray if you have web content restrictions set up under Content & Privacy Restrictions in Screen Time .

Open the Safari app.

Tap the Edit button, then select the website or websites that you want to delete from your history.

Tap the Delete button.

A cookie is a piece of data that a site puts on your device so that site can remember you when you visit again.

To block cookies:

Go to Settings > Safari > Advanced.

Turn on Block All Cookies.

If you block cookies, some web pages might not work. Here are some examples:

You will likely not be able to sign in to a site even when using your correct username and password.

You might see a message that cookies are required or that your browser's cookies are off.

Some features on a site might not work.

Content blockers are third-party apps and extensions that let Safari block cookies, images, resources, pop-ups, and other content.

To get a content blocker:

Download a content blocking app from the App Store.

Tap Settings > Safari > Extensions.

Tap to turn on a listed content blocker.

You can use more than one content blocker. If you need help, contact the app developer .

Information about products not manufactured by Apple, or independent websites not controlled or tested by Apple, is provided without recommendation or endorsement. Apple assumes no responsibility with regard to the selection, performance, or use of third-party websites or products. Apple makes no representations regarding third-party website accuracy or reliability. Contact the vendor for additional information.

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