"These days, disabling your cookies would make it nearly impossible to use any web application. I’m not sure if people are still out there browsing the web with disabled cookies, but if you are, my hat’s off to you! :)"
I use Firefox + Cookie Monster, which allows me to enable temporary cookies for the sites that I'm just browsing and permanent cookies for my webmail and social networking sites.
The only site which sits in the middle of these -- it breaks without cookies but I don't use it enough to justify cookies -- is scribd. It's gotten to the point where I actively cringe whenever I see the word "scribd" anywhere. Basically they show you a perfectly working presentation for about ten seconds and then suddenly send you on an infinite redirect loop which simply says "optimizing your Scribd experience", and once you temporarily enable cookies they dump you on an index page having nothing to do with the presentation you just started reading.
I might shift them to a "store cookies permanently" exception, but it still bugs me. You should never require cookies for content which can be read by solely clicking "Temporarily Allow Cookies for this domain name." Cookies don't do anything if you delete them immediately after the transaction is over. (I am looking especially at you, New York Times: you are guilty, guilty, guilty of this.)
I've been browsing since forever with JavaScript and cookies disabled and with a middle-man (NoScript in my case) to selectively enable cookies for sites that are worth it, it is no problem.
I cringe using other people's browsers that do not block ads and javascript. Some sites that I thought weren't that bad turn into hideous ad-monsters.
Over the years the web has gone from a peaceful landscape to Times Square.
I use Firefox + Cookie Monster, which allows me to enable temporary cookies for the sites that I'm just browsing and permanent cookies for my webmail and social networking sites.
The only site which sits in the middle of these -- it breaks without cookies but I don't use it enough to justify cookies -- is scribd. It's gotten to the point where I actively cringe whenever I see the word "scribd" anywhere. Basically they show you a perfectly working presentation for about ten seconds and then suddenly send you on an infinite redirect loop which simply says "optimizing your Scribd experience", and once you temporarily enable cookies they dump you on an index page having nothing to do with the presentation you just started reading.
I might shift them to a "store cookies permanently" exception, but it still bugs me. You should never require cookies for content which can be read by solely clicking "Temporarily Allow Cookies for this domain name." Cookies don't do anything if you delete them immediately after the transaction is over. (I am looking especially at you, New York Times: you are guilty, guilty, guilty of this.)