Everyone is watching what you do online. How user tracking with cookies works

Re:Everyone is watching what you do online. How user trackin... by eli on Wednesday June 13, 2018 @12:52PM (#17304833)

Why is this better than a session cookie? Basic auth is a pretty wonky user experience. Hard to customize the prompt and "logout" is awkward.

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Re:Everyone is watching what you do online. How user trackin... by antsar on Wednesday June 13, 2018 @01:04PM (#17304963)

I didn't say it's better :) Just an alternative.

One way to handle logout (without closing the browser) is to have a logout link with a destination of "https://bad_username:[email protected]". I believe this causes the browser to forget the original (valid) credentials and attempt authentication with the invalid credentials. This will fail, and produce a new login prompt. Then you have to close the prompt, and close the subsequent "401" page.

So yeah, it is awkward.

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Re:Everyone is watching what you do online. How user trackin... by eli on Wednesday June 13, 2018 @06:40PM (#17307605)

Fair enough. I think modern browsers warn on links with username/password. The UX for basic auth is so bad it is not really a usable feature

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