otsmr / cookie-banner-blocker

A cookie banner blocker that removes most cookie and newsletter popups without a blocklist.

Cookie Banner Blocker

A cookie banner blocker that removes most cookie and newsletter pop-ups without a block list.
It also detects so-called "consent cookie banner pages" that redirect to a separate consent page before opening the actual page.

I started the project out of frustation, because the cookie banners annoy me a lot. Since I use the addon in combination with uBlock Origin, I barely see cookie banners anymore, so the project is finished for me. You are welcome to develop the project further, by forking it.

Firefox Addons

Goal of the project

There is already the possibility to block cookie banners via blocklists (among others also with the uBlock Origin). However, this project aims to detect and hide "new" banners or redirect banners without a blocklist (without giving consent).

Unfortunately, the detection is not perfect, so there is the possibility to deactivate the cookie banner blocker with just one click for a single page:

How does the recognition work?

I could identify three different categories of banners.

Simple cookie banners

These are usually located at the bottom of the page and are very annoying due to their intrusive colour. They can be recognised by the fact that they are fixed (position: fixed) and often have a high Z-index. Since this also applies to most navigations, additional searches are made for keywords (cookie :)).

Overlay-Banner

These particularly prominent banners blur the background and make the page unusable until accepted. These banners reveal themselves by the fact that they are fixed and have the same size as the actual page. If such an overlay is found, all elements with a higher Z-index are removed. In addition, a CSS rule is inserted that overrides the anti-scrolling rules of the page.

Redirect-Banner

This category of banners redirect the user to a separate "consent cookie banner pages". They are detected by keywords in the url and the fact that the previous url is usually contained in a GET parameter. The redirection is prevented by changing the user agent to a search engine user agent. After that, there is no need to give consent. After all, the pages still want to be crawled by Google and co.

Setup

npm i -g web-ext

Credits

I was inspired by this Project
The icons are from Font Awesome

cookie-banner-blocker's Issues

Removes Jiras "create issue" dialogs

With this addon installed it's not possible any more to report issues in a Jira tracker.

Removes often whole content instead of banner only

Detection algorithm needs to be improved. For now it recognize banners very well, but when removing on many websites it removes the whole page content, even the text.

Example URL with v.0.1.8: www.computerbase.de (in 0.1.9 only this one page was fixed)
Example URL with v.0.1.9: www.ip-insider.de

Would be great, if not only these pages could be excluded from blocking too much, but also adjust the method of detection for similar cases.

disable function does not work

On this page, the disable function does not work:
https://consent.google.de/m?continue=https://www.google.de/maps&gl=DE&m=0&pc=m&hl=de&src=1

blocks video

I just installed this extension and already it seems to cause the same problems other blockers do.

https://www.geenstijl.nl
Can't load this at all.

https://www.telegraaf.nl/video/
Can;t load videos on the biggest Dutch newspaper.

Some newspapers belonging to 1 company don't work at all. Two examples
http://ad.nl/
https://www.destentor.nl/

Can't access settings

When trying to access add-on settings, I get an error message.

Not working with Cookiebot?

Doesn't seem to work with Cookiebot, at least not when slide-up function is used as on https://www.voffice.pro

No detection for these sites

I love the idea behind this add-on, but it does not appear to be working on these sites:

• https://www.finanzen.net/: Overlay banner, but (as far as I've understood from looking at the HTML) it's realised as an iframe so as to impede shenanigans like the one we're trying to pull off. If you block the iframe via your adblocker, the site will still not work because it lacks scroll bars. Truly annoying.

• https://youtube.com: Redirect banner, redirects to empty page.

blocks functional banners on IKEA.at

The banner blocker unfortunately also blocks useful banners on the IKEA.at website.
Like the ones that come from the right side of the screen when you click on "Produktdetails" or "Produktmaße".

Apart from that great work, thanks!

Instagram disappears entirely

It's a bit ironic, but the entire content of https://www.instagram.com disappears completely with this plugin. It would be nice to be able to deactivate the plugin only on certain sites to help with issues like this.

Compatibility to Firefox v. 68

Is it possible to make this addon compatible with Firefox v.68(esr)?

List of URLs with failed banners + please whitelist www.virustotal.com

Eine neue Version wäre echt toll. Ich schreibe dieses Ticket mal auf deutsch, weil ich anhand der deutschen Sprache des Addons davon ausgehe, dass Sie ebenfalls in diesem Land beheimatet sind.

Wie ich schon vor zwei Jahren sagte, wird auf "www.virustotal.com" sogar in Version 0.1.9.2 komplett blockiert. Da diese Seite für die Malwareerkennung sehr wichtig ist, bitte ich Sie, diese Seite und solche Seiten im Allgemeinen in die Whitelist mit aufzunehmen. Auch Captchas dürfen nicht länger blockiert werden.

Im Folgenden habe ich mir die Mühe gemacht und einige Websites zusammengestellt, die von Cookie Banner Blocker nicht erkannt werden. Vielleicht können Sie anhand dieser Seiten Gemeinsamkeiten finden, wodurch sie die Regeln zum Blockieren noch einmal verbessern können:

• https://www.bdrsuite.com/blog/vmware-workstation-player-vs-vmware-workstation-pro/
• https://www.pcspezialist.de/ratgeber/2019/01/07/windows-10-update-fehler/
• https://testguild.com/qtp-vbscript-sendkeys-faq/
• https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1692167-getting-rid-of-microsoft-powershell-core-filesystem-to-path-when-getting-acl
• https://www.reddit.com/r/Warthunder/comments/kpxxz8/comment/gi31vao/
• https://forum.vodafone.de/t5/Archiv-Mein-Vodafone-Mein-Kabel/Registrierung-bei-Mein-Vodafone-nicht-m%C3%B6glich/td-p/1764208
• https://www.channelpartner.de/a/so-reparieren-sie-fast-jeden-fehler,3333801
• https://www.pcrisk.de/ratgeber-zum-entfernen/9081-gandcrab-5-2-ransomware
• https://www.test.de/Zahnpasta-im-Test-4607097-0/
• https://www.juracademy.de/schuldrecht-bt1/ausschluss-gewaehrleistung.html
• https://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1170490&seqNum=2
• https://codepen.io/AlexJONeill/pen/jwNjVN
• https://de.scribd.com/document/398558090/Quickly-Fix-Bootrec-Fixboot-Access-is-Denied-in-Windows-10
• https://appuals.com/cancel-windows-11-update/
• https://de.indeed.com/jobs?q=Management&l=Isselburg&vjk=005bbf5ce5a31346
  (nur bei zusätzlichen anderen Blockern: Klicke in der Kategoei "um Umkreis von 25 km" den Button "Nur genauer Standort", dann erscheint ein Banner)
• https://www.anwaltsregister.de/Gesetzesaenderungen/Gesetzliche_Neuregelungen_zum_1._Maerz_2018.d5154.html
  (Der wohl weltweit hartnäckigste Banner! Nach dem Cookie-Banner erscheint der Newsletter-Banner nach etwa 15 sec, bisher hat kein Addon eine automatische Erkennung für diese Art Overlay)

Können Sie sich das einmal ansehen und für das Addon eine modifizierte Version herausbringen?