I appreciate the list of potential harms. I'm curious about your last point though. Isn't it trivially easy to wipe cookies from your browser?

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drnick1 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You should always configure your browser to automatically wipe all data on exit. The Arkenfox user.js user profile does this and more to mitigate fingerprinting.

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majorchord an hour ago | parent [-]

I am logged into way too many sites to do that unfortunately. I do use a password manager with a browser plugin to make it easier, but it's still a lot of manual work to re-login to all the sites I use on a normal basis, for both work and home, every time I restart my browser.

Would be nice if there was some other solution, like maybe encrypting the browser profile and then requiring a pin/password/biometric/something to unlock it on each start.

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drnick1 an hour ago | parent [-]

It shouldn't take more than one second to log into a website using the Firefox password manager.

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majorchord 35 minutes ago | parent [-]

In my case it often can and does.

Many sites I use force email or SMS-based 2FA, sometimes in addition to "security questions" and/or have other multiple steps of authorization (like captchas) required; it's often not just a simple username/password for me.

Now multiply that by 25 different sites. Not happening.

	▲	drnick1 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		One option for that is to use multiple Firefox profiles. The main general-purpose browsing profile would have a hardened configuration, while dedicated profiles are used for other websites that should remain logged in.

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fsflover 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's not just about cookies but also about fingerprinting, which is extremely hard to prevent.

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SoftTalker 3 hours ago | parent [-]

No extensions that randomly change your fingerprint? I suppose that might trigger a lot of captchas.

	▲	majorchord an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		There are but I'm not aware of anything that can reliably fool creepjs. https://abrahamjuliot.github.io/creepjs/ And yes it often results in endless captcha loops.
	▲	fsflover 9 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Fingerprinting can be extremely sophisticated. Have a look at this test: https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ Only Tor Browser can reliably fight with it.

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ranger_danger 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It can be yes, although not everyone wants to do that because you will likely be logged out of all the websites you're using, shopping carts cleared out, etc.