Restarting firefox and cookies

Sometimes I need to restart Firefox.

Last year, when I restarted Firefox, if I was logged into ATS or other sites before the restart, then I was still logged into those sites after the restart. I have Firefox set to remember cookies, so the only times I had to relogin, was once a month when the cookies expire (I guess on ATS they are good for about 30 days).

So I was happy with all that.

But this year, I find that whenever I restart Firefox, I have to re-login to ATS and every other site, yet I didn't (knowingly, at least) change anything in Firefox that would affect cookies. I just checked the Firefox cookie setting and it's still set to remember cookies *In tools, options, privacy it says "keep (cookies) until..." and that setting says "they expire".

Has anyone ever had this happen before and more importantly have any ideas how I can get it back to the way it was last year where I only had to re-login to ATS once a month, instead of every time I restart the browser? If it was just one site it wouldn't be too bad, but I'm in multiple sites and all of them are now making me re-login whereas only a few used to do that on browser restart.

Please help!

Thanks in advance.

I don't have that strange problem with Firefox 3.5.3, so it's difficult to help you.

Is it me or is Firefox getting worse? I have seen so many people complaining that I think they must be doing something wrong (or people are only noticing it now).

Edit: did you saw this page?

[edit on 13/2/2010 by ArMaP]

I am not aware of what would cause the problem you describe.

I do advise, however, that the browser is doing the best thing. Blindly accepting cookies can cause all sorts of privacy issues.

If this concerns you, you can use a plugin (Cookie Monster is one) that will remember cookie settings on a per-site basis. That way you can set it to accept ATS/BTS cookies always, per session, or never. I have it set to allow ATS/BTS but deny all cookies by default. Same with _javascript and Flash.

The proof is in the pudding, as it were. When I do virus/malware scans, nothing really comes up. I don't get viruses (when I use Windows - my main OS is linux), my browser doesn't get hijacked and I don't see popups or ads.

Your choice, of course. I just wanted to provide a little info. Feel free to ask questions if you have any.

Originally posted by ArMaP
I don't have that strange problem with Firefox 3.5.3, so it's difficult to help you.

Is it me or is Firefox getting worse? I have seen so many people complaining that I think they must be doing something wrong (or people are only noticing it now).

Edit: did you saw this page?

ArMaP, you're a genius for finding that!!! So is the guy who wrote it.

There was tiny bad news but great big good news. As soon as I read that link about a corrupt cookies.sqlite file, that certainly seemed consistent with my symptoms of going from working to not working without any changes on my part. And my computer did crash about 6 times last year so that last crash might have corrupted some files during the crash, (just a guess, I don't know how else the file gets corrupted, as my hard drive has been very reliable).

So I followed that instruction and deleted that file after closing Firefox. Then I restarted Firefox and it started loading my previous windows and tabs for about 5 seconds, then BAM!!! Everything went black, no blue screen of death, the PC just completely crashed, so I'm not sure if it didn't like me deleting that file but it seems that way, though that shouldn't have caused a crash, which is relatively rare on my PC. So that's the small bad news.

The big good news: I simply restarted, and everything works now, so that fixed it!

The chances of me finding that with my own troubleshooting were slim, I suppose eventually I might have tried uninstalling and re-installing firefox, but I'm not sure even that would have fixed the problem as almost no program I've ever seen uninstalls so completely as to remove every trace it was ever installed.

@keftystrat, thanks for the tip on cookie monster. The only problem I'd have with adding more apps is I'm already strained for resources on programs that run all the time and I pretty much run my browser all the time, so I'll have to see how much resources that uses before installing it.

The only thing you don't seem to be clear on is that I don't think there's any link between accepting cookies and getting viruses, nothing comes up on my virus scans either, and as for cookies, well I do allow them so I do see some of those when I scan for cookies or spyware, but then I expect to see them since I allow and use cookies. I see cookies like the ones that remember my login on ATS as my friends, not my enemies. But controlling them on a site by site basis does sound nice if it's not too resource intensive.

Originally posted by leftystrat
I do advise, however, that the browser is doing the best thing. Blindly accepting cookies can cause all sorts of privacy issues.

I disagree, the best thing is doing what the user wants. Right or wrong, the user is the one using the program, not the other way around, so the program must do exactly what the user wants it to do.

If this concerns you, you can use a plugin (Cookie Monster is one) that will remember cookie settings on a per-site basis. That way you can set it to accept ATS/BTS cookies always, per session, or never. I have it set to allow ATS/BTS but deny all cookies by default. Same with _javascript and Flash.

That's one of the reasons I like Opera, it does all that without the need for plugins or addons.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

I'm glad it worked.

As I said, that doesn't happen to me, so it would be difficult to correct if there wasn't already a solution.

Originally posted by ArMaP

Originally posted by leftystrat
I have it set to allow ATS/BTS but deny all cookies by default. Same with _javascript and Flash.

That's one of the reasons I like Opera, it does all that without the need for plugins or addons.

Opera will let you set cookies by site, but you need an add-on (actually it's called a user script) to control the scripts by site, it's called "blockit", which is like the "noscript" add-on for Firefox which can allow scripts on sites like ATS while blocking them from other, potentially malicious sites.

Opera NoScript Alternative BlockIt

I haven't tried it yet because the source looks a little iffy, but that author seems to like it, and he's got lots of company that won't use Opera without a noscript add-on equivalent. That will keep some people from using Chrome too.

Regarding giving the user what they want, in principle I agree. However in my experience less then 10% of PC users know enough about what they really want in regard to security issues. They know they don't want viruses, or spyware that can slow down their PC, but many don't know which cookies are good and which cookies are bad. Of course even those definitions are subjective, some people might want to be tracked across every site to increase their chances of getting served advertising that will suit their particular interests, in that cases all cookies might be "good" to them.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
Opera will let you set cookies by site, but you need an add-on (actually it's called a user script) to control the scripts by site, it's called "blockit", which is like the "noscript" add-on for Firefox which can allow scripts on sites like ATS while blocking them from other, potentially malicious sites.

No, I can disable JavaScript in the "Quick Preferences" menu but enable it in the "Site Preferences" for any site for which I want it.

PS: I just tried it, so I know it works.

reply to post by ArMaP

That works on _javascript, but what about other types of scripts and executables?

From the noscript website:

addons.mozilla.org...

It allows JavaScript, Java and other executable content to run only from trusted domains of your choice

reply to post by Arbitrageur

That works with JavaScript, Java and plugins, although it's all plugins in a block, we cannot block or allow only some plugins.

reply to post by ArMaP

I guess I'll have to try it myself, but this author doesn't think Opera 10 has the same functionality as Firefox with Noscript:

www.theregister.co.uk...

this feature is inadequate. NoScript allows the user to turn off Java, _javascript and similar programs on all sites except those specifically allowed without breaking the browsing experience. In our experience, Opera does not.

To see what we mean, try the following:

* Disable _javascript from running by default, by clicking Tools > Preferences, highlighting the Content tab and unchecking Enable _javascript.

* Surf to Google Mail and attempt to log in. You'll be unsuccessful because _javascript is required.

* Now, right-click on the page and allow _javascript to run only on that page. You will continue to receive an error message telling you _javascript is required.

In other words, the superiority of NoScript is that it makes it easy to turn off scripting by default and whitelist only those sites deemed trustworthy. Opera's site preferences feature attempts to offer the same capability, but in our real-world tests, has fallen short.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

I don't have Google Mail (and the people at Google want my cellphone number to send a confirmation message, but I don't have a cellphone), so I cannot try Google Mail, but all other pages I tried (including ATS) work, he just had to refresh the page after changing the configuration.

[edit on 14/2/2010 by ArMaP]

reply to post by ArMaP

Thanks for the feedback, maybe the default options are better than I thought then, but I still wonder why that guy wrote the blockit script if all that stuff is built in???

I guess I must have signed up for the gmail account before they started the cell number requirement, that's bad, not everyone has a cell phone, I didn't have one when I signed up.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

I guess we can start a conspiracy theory about that also.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I have my Firefox, latest one, to accept session cookies always, no third party cookies, and erase all cookies when I close Firefox. Works fine for me, even ATS.

Here I was thinking it was something done to my computer that was causing the problem, since I've been having the issue at work.
Ended up using chome... which I just don't like nearly as much, but still works.

Originally posted by RuneSpider
Ended up using chome... which I just don't like nearly as much, but still works.

There's a better Chrome called Iron, which uses the same source code, but isn't as privacy-invasive as Google's offering.

If you're looking at other browsers, don't forget Opera. It's FAST.

reply to post by leftystrat

Opera isn't bad...

In fact, I'm considering just switching to Opera until I can figure out what's up with Firefox.


I've had to many issues with Chrome pulling broken links to websites, even though they're active, issues with it loosing tabs, and the set up on it is eh...