CookieBlock is a Free Browser extension that strictly imposes your Cookie Consent Preferences as defined by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), for any website even if it displays a Cookie Banner. The Extension is available for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge and Opera browsers.
These banners notify the visitors on the usage of the website cookies and requests their consent to activate them. CookieBlock will essentially override this if they aren’t in agreement with the user policy that has been configured. This helps enforce data security and privacy without relying on the website that hosts the cookies.
The GDPR is one of the world’s strongest Data Privacy and Security Law passed by the EU. It imposes obligations onto companies worldwide, collecting data related to EU citizens with a primary intention to enhance the control and rights of individuals over their personal data.
The CookieBlock Consent Options are first specified at the time of installation of the extension and all the cookies (installed earlier) that aren’t aligned with the policy are removed. Subsequently, the Extension keeps enforcing the consent preferences as the user browses various websites. The Consent Options that have been defined at the time of installation can be changed any time later. Cookie Block allows users to configure exceptions for specified trusted domains to permit all their cookies.
- Strictly necessary cookies: Absolutely necessary cookies to enable essential website functionality like login, registration, shopping carts and more.
- Functionality cookies: Convenience cookies meant to enable important website usability features such as saving style preferences etc.
- Analytical / Statistical cookies: Cookies that collect information about how visitors use a website. They may track the user and collect sensitive data.
- Tracking and Advertising cookies: Cookies that essentially track and collect sensitive information on the user’s browsing patterns to tailor advertisements.
CookieBlock allows the ‘Strictly necessary cookies’ but gives the user a choice to consent or block the other ones.
How it Works:
CookieBlock works by way of a background script that executes each time a cookie is added or updated. The Extension stores this cookie locally, classifies it into one of the 4 categories stated below and then enforces the consent preferences that you have defined for each category, deleting those cookies that you haven’t permitted.
Follow these Steps for Installation:
1. Download and install the CookieBlock Extension from the link provided at the end of this article depending on which browser you wish to use.
2. Choose the type of cookies that you want to allow. By default, only the strictly necessary ones are permitted.
3. Click on ‘Classify and Remove Stored Cookies’ to complete the installation.
4. To change the Consent Preferences after installation, open the Extension and click on ‘Open General Settings’. You can temporarily pause removal of cookies, restore defaults, provide domain exceptions and more from the General Settings.
Issues:
Since the classification of Cookies cannot be entirely accurate, it is possible that certain functions on some websites are broken due to erroneous classification. Users are requested to report such broken websites so that the cookie exceptions list can be updated and classification can get more precise.
Verdict:
Overall, CookieBlock is a very good extension that is available for most of the browsers and strictly enforces the users consent on website cookies in keeping with GDPR.
Click the following links to download CookieBlock for the respective browsers.
