Cookie Competition

bigearsbilly · 03-22-2023, 05:17 AM

I have been looking at web sites and their cookies.

So far the winner is the dear old Brtish Broadcasting Corporation
a supposed force for truth and information with
10,661 cookies!

can anyone find a worse site?
https://cookiepedia.co.uk/website/www.bbc.co.uk

business_kid · 03-22-2023, 06:28 AM

What dweeb wasted his days counting 10,000 cookies on the beeb?

Tell him they have mad significant changes, and we'd like him to count again.

Pagonis · 03-22-2023, 11:11 AM

Can you show me those 10k cookies? I just visited bbc.co.uk and there's not even close to 1k (with adblock disabled, etc).

teckk · 03-22-2023, 11:27 AM

https://www.bbc.co.uk

I let it load with images and scripts turned on, let it sit for a minute.
I got 56 cookies set.
https://0x0.st/HosY.png

teckk · 03-22-2023, 11:46 AM

Found this
https://www.pcloud.com/eu/the-webs-m...vasive-cookies
https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/ce-cookies
https://html.com/resources/cookies-ultimate-guide/

sundialsvcs · 03-22-2023, 11:59 AM

At the end of every one of my web sessions – including this one – 100% of "cookies" get discarded.

teckk · 03-22-2023, 12:31 PM

Another reason not to have scripts turned on in a web browser unless you have to.
56 cookies with scripts run, cross site cookies.

Code:

>>> import requests
>>> r = requests.get('https://www.bbc.co.uk')
>>> for c in r.cookies:
...     print(c.name +"==>>", c.value)
... 
>>> r = requests.get('http://google.com')
>>> for c in r.cookies:
...     print(c.name +"==>>", c.value)
... 
1P_JAR==>> 2023-03-22-17
AEC==>> ARSKqsKNUMcfzooQUi5f29Jo_tlUxOgxHXBusZ1igza4jnEx7umfW-_wHg
NID==>> 511=tVJGFkuJx1aBPa5R1do1M2GSwzhcnkmjAIpIonykQpnRN2rIzSUzI0fnYnBjE61iQtBYfxJ-8YCKqMUrFS0BR4khc4GGuHJ5KwTSwUVCHEgRRn-u_t-tG5HnUiLb17fVFc7rxPEHoja5CQf44t1iXraeyxDili9YhCQiNk0n8LQ
>>>

None without scripts. Google sets 2.
http://www.google.com with scripts run sets 4.

A google search sets 7.
https://0x0.st/HozK.png

Duckduckgo sets 1, and that's for google.
https://0x0.st/HozP.png

business_kid · 03-22-2023, 01:06 PM

BBC is an unusual example because they do an excessive amount of checking about who you are, where you're from, have you a tv license and is it up to date, etc.

The boss there has to be paranoid, because the politicians of all stripes are out to get him if he puts a foot wrong. Witness the recent 'Gary Lineker' fiasco, and the previous 'Jeremy Clarkson' fiasco where they fired one of three presenters for their Top Gear program. Commercial tv came running in with money, and the other two presenters quit and BBC ended up gifting a tremendously popular show to the opposition.

Pagonis · 03-22-2023, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teckk

https://www.bbc.co.uk

I let it load with images and scripts turned on, let it sit for a minute.
I got 56 cookies set.
https://0x0.st/HosY.png

Which is not 10k.

boughtonp · 03-22-2023, 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by business_kid

BBC is an unusual example because they do an excessive amount of checking about who you are, where you're from, have you a tv license and is it up to date, etc.

Even if that wasn't nonsense, you've named four pieces of data that occupies less than a hundred bytes - so even were they to absurdly stored the data as a single byte per cookie, it would not make a hundred cookies, never mind ten thousand.

The reason for the excessively large number is simply because Cookiepedia is choosing to inflate their numbers by using aggregated totals.

Quote:

The boss there has to be paranoid, because the politicians of all stripes are out to get him if he puts a foot wrong. Witness the recent 'Gary Lineker' fiasco, and the previous 'Jeremy Clarkson' fiasco where they fired one of three presenters for their Top Gear program. Commercial tv came running in with money, and the other two presenters quit and BBC ended up gifting a tremendously popular show to the opposition.

None of that has anything to do with cookies, though given your wording I'll point out that the BBC didn't "gift" anything - Jeremy Clarkson had already received a final warning, so when he made sustained unprovoked physical and verbal attacks on a co-worker, it wasn't like they had a choice.

business_kid · 03-23-2023, 09:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by boughtonp

Even if that wasn't nonsense,

It isn't nonsense. Try accessing it from Ireland!

I've been thrown out over Geo-IP. Like most channels who pay for programs, they guarantee not to make them available to those not their viewers. Ireland has a very small pool of viewers, so RTE can sometimes get world Premieres of a new film or show. If I want to join bbc, they want my tv license number & English postcode. Yes, they check stuff.

boughtonp · 03-23-2023, 09:47 AM

Geo-locating an IP address is not "an excessive amount of checking" and does not involve knowing who someone is.

Signing up for a video on-demand service is an entirely different matter to cookies received from merely browsing a website.

sundialsvcs · 03-23-2023, 10:47 AM

Every time I close my web browser, all cookies and saved information disappears.

business_kid · 03-23-2023, 12:54 PM

My browser subdirs in ~/.cache are symlinks to counterparts in /dev/shm, which dissappear every power-off.

_blackhole_ · 03-24-2023, 05:17 AM

Unless you're hiding your porn habit from the family, I don't really get the needs to wipe everything, beyond cookies. Browsing history is a convenience after all and it's useful to see where you have been, in case you need to revisit a particular site. Seems like shooting yourself in the foot out of paranoia.

By doing anything out of the ordinary when browsing, you're only finger printing yourself more effectively. If I were to do the same, for example, I would just be telling some web server "here I am, the user who runs FreeBSD + firefox and clears all of his cache and cookies every time". As opposed to the millions of Windows 10 users who don't. If you want anonymity for certain things, just use tor and hope that the NSA or whoever, aren't running the exit node...