ghost
commented
2 years ago For reference this is what I am talking about and I hope someone at Brave sees this and understands what I mean.
As you can see, even if it appears as blocked, it will be allowed because of Ephemeral Storage, but there is no indication about it, it even displays as blocked so people would think it is blocked but somehow they see Google which anyone should see as evil, Allowed.
The other issue is how Brave will no really display any difference between Storages, If you allow mzzcloud from the cookies in use box or add [*.]mzzcloud.life to brave://settings/cookies, then when you refresh the page it starts from zero, because now it is allowed and using the normal storage, if you block it, then it will be using the Ephemeral storage, so you can switch between two different storages like that but no indication about it. The only difference is one will appear as allowed and the other as blocked even if it is technically allowed it temporarily on the Ephemeral Storage.
It doesn't seem big, but the problem is how Brave is not blocking cross-site cookies, and you are not informing users about that either. If you block ALL cookies, then everything gets blocked, but if you allow 1p cookies then everything else gets allowed and stored in the Ephemeral Storage, so people blocking all cookies will not be blocking even if they thought they were.
Of course people can just go and disable the flag, but that's not the point here, the point is how Brave is not displaying the information correctly, like Google appears as allowed because it is the cookies that seem to get recognized as allowed, but the Local Storage doesn't even if it is also allowed and storage in the Ephemeral Storage as well.
Like you can have some cookies in the normal storage and others in the Ephemeral Storage and there is no way to tell them apart, and that's the main issue I bring here, the only difference is in this case mzzcloud appearing as blocked instead of allowed, so I am sure people see it and think it was blocked but no.
I mean, technically normal users are not even aware of the Ephemeral Storage, even if it has been turned on by months of months, so there are issues also about how Brave is presenting the information in brave://settings/cookies since cross-site are not being blocked, not all cookies would be blocked if just 1p gets added to the allowed list.
Also, people keep telling the story like how Total Cookie Protection from Firefox is unique and amazing, but Brave has it for long time ago, but people don't know about it because they are not told about anything, would be nice if there was a toggle for it or a 4th option so people know the new default is not blocking 3p/cross-site cookies but allowed in a temporary storage.
Hope someone sees this and improve is overtime, I mean at least, having the 3p properly displayed in the allowed tab with an asterisk would be enough to tell them apart form the ones that are in the permanent/normal storage, or something in the DevTools, to explain users why even if they are blocking 3p cookies, they are still getting allowed by Brave and which ones.
Thank you.
Hi,
Ephemeral Storage is a great feature for sure, but there are problems in the way the information is displayed.
First, nobody even knows they are already using Ephemeral Storage by default, because people still have Block all, Block third-party and Allow all cookies. So technically, you are not blocking third-party cookies, you are still allowed them, they are only store in the Ephemeral Storage. So shouldn't there be a toggle for it or a 4th option? because someone might want to fully block 3rd party cookies, without going to flags and disable the Ephemeral Storage.
the biggest problem is how View Site Information - Cookies panel, doesn't display the information correctly. If you go to a website like Example and you hit play it will say that only 3 cookies 'in use', you open the panel and it says in the Allowed tab that only fmovies and google cookies, and on the Blocked one, it also has Google local and session storage and muzzcloud local storage. The Ephemeral Storage obviously works, because when you refresh the video continues where you refreshed.
So, how can people know what is Brave doing and what is going to the Ephemeral Storage and what is being allowed if it displays as blocked? why it is displaying only cookies as allowed by the others as blocked?
The only way to really tell and really do anything about Ephemeral Storage is to see the Devtools, and then you only check the 3p entries, because nothing will really mention anything about Ephemeral Storage as far as I can see. In Fmovies you can't even use Devtools, I had to install tampermonkey with a script called Anti-Anti Debugger so I can see it.
So the feature is amazing, but the information provided by Brave is not great. I can be a Chromium limitation? but maybe Brave team can do something about it (?).
I mean, when there are flags like "Enable First Party Ephemeral Storage" it shows you want to do more with it and unless a person starts testing and understanding the way it gets triggered, then people have to blindly test it and believe it is doing what it is doing.
Maybe Brave can even eventually will let us like transfer Ephemeral Storage to the normal one, instead of having to re-do everything and start from the default values, but if there is no proper information then it will be difficult to know what is where and it would be nice for the users if Brave just displayed better the information of Ephemeral Storage, so users can really be aware of everything Brave is doing.