Google tests improved Cookie Controls UI for Chrome in Incognito mode, blocks third-party cookies by default

Recently Google has promised they’ll preview “improved cookie controls” for Chrome later this year. They’re already on it by building on SameSite cookie attribute, meanwhile, Chromium team is also testing a feature in Canary that blocks third-party cookies by default and offers an improved UI to control them in incognito mode.

Yesterday, Mozilla has shipped Firefox that blocks third-party cookies and cryptomining by default, the focus now shifts to Google Chrome as Firefox offers these. A few months back on Chromium blog, Chrome team revealed their plans on how cookies will be handled by the Chrome browser.

“We announced at I/O that we will be updating Chrome to provide users with more transparency about how sites are using cookies, as well as simpler controls for cross-site cookies. We will preview these features later this year.”

Note: Google Chrome by default doesn’t block third-party cookies, you can verify this by visiting.chrome://settings/content/cookies

Now, latest Chrome Canary provides “Enable Improved Cookie Controls UI” flag, which when turned on “Enables third-party cookie blocking and an improved cookie controls UI in incognito mode”. This flag is available for Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome OS platforms.

To see the new third-party cookie controls UI in incognito mode in Chrome browser

1. Ensure you’re using the latest Canary version, visit chrome://flags page

2. Load chrome://flags/#improved-cookie-controls in address bar

3. Select “Enabled” and restart the browser.

4. Enter incognito mode by selecting “New Incognito Window” option in the Chrome menu.

5. Navigate to any website, or for instance, head to YouTube site, you’ll notice a new icon in Omnibox, which when clicked, displays the new UI with a message”Third-party cookie blocking is on” and displays how many cookies Chrome has blocked.

6. Now click on Padlock icon and select “Cookies” to get “Cookies in use” dialog that shows cookies that are Allowed and Blocked on the website. Visiting the latter reveals which “third-party cookies are being blocked without exception”.