[mgkimsal]

in the 90s, we had a 'big cookie' scare. and laws were threatened (or passed?). And... MUCH of this came down to ... managing cookies (or other browser state) was (and is) largely so damn hidden behind layers of configs, menus and options.

We have a home button. We have forward and back. We have 'bookmark' buttons, which many people understand. A big 'COOKIE' button, on the main browser UI, that clearly show cookie info, with a big "GET RID OF ALL COOKIES" trashcan button right there.... that would have prevented 90+% of the scare and legislation efforts from the start.

I looked for "clear my cookies" - in 2021, it's still click '3 dots' or something else, then click something, then click something, then confirm. https://its.uiowa.edu/support/article/719

"But there's so much nuance - I want to keep some, and not others, etc".

We didn't have this many choices in 1998. My point is giving a big honking "get rid of it all" back then would have changed the trajectory of the entire discussion. It still might.

I've lived through 2 decades of having to deal with support people trying to help users "clear your cache" or "reset your cookies". "Private mode" does help to a degree, assuming you're dealing with somewhat tech-savvy folks.

[titzer]

Now you see the conflict of interest when an ad company develops its own browser?

[mgkimsal]

I saw it on day one.

Opera and others didn't bother to make cookie transparency a big priority either. :/

More to the point, it was poorly exposed/managed well before Chrome.

[ezoe]

The problem is, most people don't understand what cookie really is. If it's understood, you don't need to support so much clueless people and no sane politician in EU would made a cookie law.

The button you suggests cause more harm than good. Because people don't understand the cookie and think "is this button delete unnecessary data from my computer? Why not" and click it. Now all the legitimate data that were saved on their local storage is gone and they complains.

[mgkimsal]

"Now all the legitimate data that were saved on their local storage is gone and they complains."

Not necessarily. Cookie !== localStorage (although... localStorage didn't exist at the time, IIRC).

My point was "we" (it/tech folks, but mainly browser makers) got ourselves in to this mess in the first place, and rather than making things more obvious and easier to deal with at that time, we seemed to double down on more obscure UIs.

I swear, pretty much every Netscape release, and later, for years, every other Firefox release, changed where/what/how cookie mgt was located in their UI.

"most people don't understand what cookie really is"

And that's... whose fault? Putting a big-ass 'COOKIE' button, with transparency in to what data is there, with quick options to remove it all, would have gone a LONG way to normalizing understanding. See some unknown shit in there? Delete it. If enough important things start breaking after deletion, people would have adapted (either users, or developers).

"delete unnecessary data" - there's pretty much nothing people put in cookies that is truly 'necessary' for most folks.

We didn't give people usable tools to manage this stuff, so eventually people turned to legislative means.