Opera Touch for iPhone now lets you block annoying cookie prompts

February 22, 2019 ,

Opera Touch – the mobile browser designed specifically for one-handed use – has a new feature for iPhone users who's sick of tapping buttons to accept cookies whenever they visit a new site.

From now on, iOS users will have the option to skip popups and accept cookies by default. To activate it, go to the app's settings, select 'Cookie dialog blocker' and toggle the tool on.

The feature made its debut in Opera Touch for Android in November 2018, and proved so popular the developers decided to roll it out more widely.

It uses a combination of CSS rules and Javascript heuristics, and has been tested on over 15,000 popular sites. Opera says it will be adding more sites as the feature matures.

The way the cookie crumbles

Cookie prompts became commonplace after the implementation of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) last year. Their purpose is to let you know what data the website's owners gather using cookies, and give you the opportunity to opt out. However, many web users are willing to accept cookies if it means they can browse uninterrupted.

"The cookie dialog blocker is a tool which allows users to block those dialogs that break their web experience," Maciej Kocemba, product manager for Opera Touch told TechRadar. "So when you enable the feature, it will just hide the dialogs but cookies will still be enabled. This feature is about removing the dialogs and not really about whether you accept a cookie or not. It works as if you just ignored the dialog and continued to read a site without closing the prompt.

"Going a step deeper, the cookie blocker in Opera Touch has a further setting: the 'Automatically accept cookie dialogs' checkbox. If you enable the cookie blocker, this part will be switched on by default. This means in practice it will, in some cases, click the 'Accept' button for you to get rid of more dialogs. If you disable this checkbox, the browser won't give sites your acceptance. It's all under your control."



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