Your website might deploy cookies and scripts on your visitor’s web browsers. This could risk your compliance with privacy laws like GDPR. This article will help you identify the cookies your website installs on a browser.
EU’s GDPR and other major privacy laws worldwide require companies and organizations to be transparent about the data they collect from their users. This also includes the cookies that the website uses.
Websites should inform users what cookies they are using and get their consent to continue using those cookies. However, some third-party tools and services you use on your website might load cookies without your knowledge. This is why you should identify the cookies your website installs on a browser and obtain consent to use them.
In this article, we will show you different ways to identify the cookies used by a website. This not only helps you as a website owner but also helps you as a visitor to know what other websites are loading on your browser.
Let’s get right into it.
Key Takeaways:
- Website uses cookies to deliver personalized content, monitor users, and collect information from them.
- The analytical tools, and other third-party services you use on your might load cookies on your visitors’ devices.
- Identify the cookies your website installs on a browser using any free cookie checker tools or the developer console in browsers.
Cookies are small text files that contain information about site visitors’ activity and preferences on the Internet.
When a user visits a website, the website will load cookies to their browsers. The cookies will save information such as preferred language, login information, etc. When the user revisits the page, the cookies will send the information to the web server, and the server will load the website based on the user’s preferences.
This helps websites improve their browsing experience by loading the webpage as the user prefers. However, this is not the only reason why websites use cookies. Cookies serve a number of other purposes, such as tracking users’ activity, showing personalized content, retargeting ads, etc.
To serve these purposes, cookies collect information from visitors without their knowledge. This is why GDPR referred to cookies as “online identifiers,” and you need prior consent to use them.
There are different ways to identify cookies installed by a website on a browser. Now, let’s look at the different methods to identify cookies on your website.
You can easily identify the list of cookies that a website installs on your device using a cookie scanner browser extension. The CookieManager is one such tool that will help you view and edit all the cookies loaded from a webpage.
- After installing the CookieManager extension to your browser, pin the extension to your address bar.
- Click on the Cookie 🍪 icon to view the list of cookies used on a website.
To check cookies on a website in Google Chrome browser on your computer follow the below steps:
- Right-click on the webpage and select Inspect to open the Chrome Developer Console.
- Go to the Applications tab on the console.
- Under the Cookies dropdown, select the website to view the cookie details.
From there, you can view the list of cookies installed by the website on your browser.
To View Website Cookies in Firefox:
- Right-click on the webpage and select Inspect.
- Go to the Storage tab and expand the Cookies dropdown.
- Select the website from which you want to view the cookie list.
To Identify the Cookie List in Safari:
- Firstly, you need to enable the developer settings.
- Go to the Safari Settings page and select Advanced.
- Enable the Show features for web developers checkbox.
- Then, right-click on the webpage and select Inspect Element.
- Go to the Storage tab and select the website from the Cookies dropdown.
There are many free online tools that can help you find the cookies used on a website. All you need to do is enter the URL of the website that you want to check the cookies into the tool. The URL will then be scanned, and the tool will produce a report of the cookies used.
One such tool is CookieServe, which displays the cookies used on any given URL within seconds.
- Enter the URL in the text box and click the Find Cookies button.
- The tool will then show a detailed report of the cookies on the given website.
These tools are very useful when it comes to checking what cookies are being used by your website and checking whether any website that you are using has any tracking cookies.
Pro Tip:
When identifying the cookies used on your website, it’s not just enough to check the homepage of the website. Different pages of the website might be using different cookies that are set up by different plugins that run only on specific pages. Check the cookies used on all the pages on your website, not just the homepage.
To identify cookies on a website, you can use a browser extension specifically designed for scanning cookies, an online cookie checker tool, or the browser’s developer console.
To block cookies in Chrome:
-> Click the three vertical dots in the upper-right corner of the browser near your profile icon.
Navigate to the Settings menu.
-> On the Settings page, go to the Privacy and security section.
-> Select Third-party cookies.
-> Click the radio button labeled Block third-party cookies to prevent these cookies from being stored.
-> For added privacy, you can also check the box to Send a ‘Do Not Track’ request with your browsing traffic.
Yes. Every website on the internet most likely uses cookies. Some cookies are installed by the website CMS and are strictly necessary for your website to function properly. Additionally, some websites have third-party cookies installed by third-party tools and services used on the website, such as Google Analytics, Adwords, etc.
Cookies are not necessarily bad. They help websites to serve content to users based on their interests and preferences. However, some cookies, like tracking cookies, can be intrusive to one’s privacy and collect sensitive information from site visitors without their knowledge.
To delete cache files and cookies in Chrome:
-> Go to the Chrome History page and click on Delete browsing data.
-> Choose the Time range of data you want to delete.
-> Select the Cookies and Cache checkboxes and click on Delete data.
This will delete all the cached files and cookies saved on your browser in the selected time range.
Identifying the cookies that your website installs on a user’s browser is crucial. However, simply identifying cookies doesn’t make you compliant with cookie laws. You need to inform site visitors that your website uses cookies, then obtain consent from them to use cookies and make sure the cookies are blocked automatically until the user grants consent to it.
All these actions may sound overwhelming, but you can simplify your cookie compliance with a consent management tool like our GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Our plugin is a native consent management platform for WordPress websites to manage cookie consent for global data privacy laws. It will add a cookie banner to inform users about cookies and obtain prior consent.
We hope this article has helped you learn how to identify cookies your website installs on a user’s browser. If you have any questions, drop them in the comments section. We’d be happy to help you.
Comments (34)
Shovan
October 2, 2021
This is a great article to give clear instructions on how to clear cookies & cache. In reality, no one has time to follow all the steps.
If you see yourself clearing cookies frequently install a chrome extension to do the job. I would recommend Breeze to Clear Cookie & Cache from your browser.
Save some time and be productive.
Good coverage Safwana
Stu Mountjoy
November 17, 2020
I’m teaching about cookies today, this will be good to show them what a site does, or can do, with cookies.
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October 11, 2020
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February 26, 2020
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February 5, 2020
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January 31, 2020
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January 23, 2020
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January 23, 2020
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January 14, 2020
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January 9, 2020
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djamila_st
January 5, 2020
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January 2, 2020
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November 12, 2019
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October 27, 2019
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September 21, 2019
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djamila_st
September 10, 2019
Thank you for this timely article.
Jenna
September 7, 2019
Very useful tutorial. I m using chrome extension and it works like a charm.
web
August 18, 2019
You can definitely see your expertise within the article you write.
The arena hopes for more passionate writers
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Erica
July 15, 2019
Creating website is a bit easy these days. By using WordPress as a Content Management System it gives you the flexibility of editing and full control of your Website. You can use it as Blog too.
Stephen Oxlade
July 12, 2019
After finding the cookies being used – is there a set script that can be used to block the cookie please ? Thanks for the help
Mark
July 15, 2019
Hi,
You can add the custom script blocker code to block custom scripts. Here is the link.
Masa
June 11, 2019
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June 9, 2019
good post
is there any role of cookies in search engine optimisation
Mark
June 13, 2019
Hi,
Refer the article here which you may find useful in regards to the query. Reach us via support if any queries regarding our plugins.
Eve Hunt
March 18, 2019
Fantastic blog! Do you have any recommendations for aspiring writers?
I’m planning to start my own website soon but I’m a little lost on everything.
Would you propose starting with a free platform like
Wordpress or go for a paid option? There are so many options out there that
I’m completely overwhelmed .. Any tips?
Safwana
March 19, 2019
If you want to create your own website, I would recommend using WordPress, as it gives you the sole control of every aspect of your website and you can extend your blog/website with extra features over the time. But it will need you to manage the site on your own as well. So depending on your requirement, you may go for paid options, but I would suggest that you try the free version of the platforms first, decide what works best and switch to it accordingly.
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March 2, 2019
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