773611 - Cookie preferences are difficult to find

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect)

Description

[set117]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.7; rv:13.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/13.0.1
Build ID: 20120614114901

Steps to reproduce:

I tried to find the settings to disable cookies


Actual results:

It was next to impossible to find.  I got frustrated.  Somebody told me to look under "History->Firefox Will: Use Custom Settings for History"  I scratched my head.


Expected results:

Cookies should be under Tracking or under its own section.  Non-technical people are going to have 0 clue to look under History for cookies.

Comment 1

[Andre Klapper]

"Edit > Preferences > Privacy > History" under Linux.
What are the exact steps (click by click) for you?

Comment 2

[Michael Newton]

Agreed, I usually have 3rd party cookies disabled. I had to enable them to make a site work today. When I went to disable them again, the checkbox I used previously was gone and I was confused for a minute. Before long I realized I had to use the dropdown to select "use custom settings for history" at which point the checkbox reappeared.

As the original reporter suggests, non-technical users are certainly going to be confused; I've been using Firefox since it was Phoenix, and Mozilla before that, so I'm probably more knowledgeable than the "typical" user.

I would suggest having the checkboxes remain visible regardless of the dropdown selection. Changing the dropdown should just check/uncheck the appropriate boxes.