Wednesday, February 22, 2006

CookiePie an innovative Firefox extension released

Sebastian Wain from Nektra has submitted CookiePie extension to Firefox Extend Contest with great expectations to be one of the finalists, since it is an innovative piece of software and push beyond the standard capabilities of Firefox. Although it doesn't came finalist he waited for the announcements to release it publicly without publishing it on Internet until now.
Mauro Asprea from Nektra has been contributing on improving user experience.
  • What is CookiePie?
    • CookiePie is a firefox extension enabling you to maintain different cookies storage in different tabs and windows.
  • How I can obtain and use it?
    • Use the tab context menu to enable CookiePie
    • For example: Toogle CookiePie in three tabs, and login to different GMail account in both.
  • Where the idea came from?
    • We need to use it internally at Nektra, and finally decide to publish it for the community.
  • What does CookiePie means for the end user?
    • It means that you can for example open multiple GMail/Yahoo Mail/Hotmail accounts in different tabs and windows simulteanously.
  • What does CookiePie means for web developers?
    • Developers working on Web Software supporting multiple users or profiles can use CookiePie to simultaneusly test their software with each user without needing to open a different browser.
  • How CookiePie was made?
    • A first look at the FireFox extensions capabilities let us think this extension was almost impossible to do. One of the limitations was the unconnected parts between http transactions and UI being difficult to correlate an UI to a specific http request/response, more when AJAX/XmlHttpRequest (i.e: GMail) is involved.
    • The work involved mainly short term research and trying to push to the extreme FireFox capabilities without knowing nothing of Mozilla Extensions at the start of development.
  • What are the current known limitations:
    • Gecko 1.8.1 has some implementation errors: FireFox store cookies although our http observer changes the response header. This means the common cookies are changed in the FireFox extensions for every transaction on each tab. More information at: Mozilla Bugzilla
    • The reordering of tabs is breaking GMail account opened tabs.
    • GMail has added after we finish this extension, an alert we hope to repair it so GMail doesn't know about another connection on another tab or window.
    • User may experience problems with another Firefox extensions (for example Tab Mix Plus)
  • What are the features we would like to have in the future?
    • Listen to users feedback.
    • Complete Cookie commitment to standards/security
    • Compatibility to another extensions.
    • Add configuration options
      • Enable CookiePie by default
      • Cookies inheritance checkbox: If a user opens a new tab/window from a CookiePie tab, the new opened tab can inherit the cookie container.
      • Cookie pipeline handling: Have a configuration like the Firefox option to choose what cookies needs to be individualized and what cookies needs to be used from the firefox container.
    • Persist/Save/Load Tab Cookies
    • Code: better & cleaner.
    • Testing: Test & Fix in complex scenarios.
  • What we suggest for future versions of Firefox?
    • We suggest to have this capability embedded natively on Firefox and not as a third party addin. We know this will involve changing relations between objects in Firefox but it's an obvious step to do in the browser war.
  • What platforms are supported?
    • Currently it ran fine on Windows and Linux. We need to check why Mac is not supported because this software is standard JS code, not platform dependent.
  • Finally:

29 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

There is a serious bug on Firefox 1.5.0.1.
The (x) close button,, will be removed. this forces me to uninstall your extension.
greetings from Argentina,

7:00 PM, March 19, 2006  
Blogger srw said...

Have you tried to change the order of your extensions and putting the close button extension below or above CookiePie?

12:46 PM, March 20, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

there is not such an extension. that is the way firefox works.

6:20 PM, March 20, 2006  
Blogger srw said...

To use both you can install Tab Mix Plus after CookiePie and you'll have again the close button.

6:30 PM, March 20, 2006  
Blogger vijay said...

well i installed cookiepie.. how ever cookie pie doesnt even shows any options or isnt anywehere to be seen apart from the extension tab.. how to use it?
it says on the extension list) that it is enabled, i tried disabling and enabling it but stil nothing.

how to make use of this thing, am sure the solution to have two yahoo /gmail account work is to have different cookies in tabs but damm its sitting there and wont do nothin... is it coz of tab mix plus??

11:48 PM, April 15, 2006  
Blogger srw said...

Hi Vijay,

Did you try to enable it right clicking the tab and selecting toogle on/off CookiePie? and do you see a cookiepie inside the tab?

9:02 AM, April 17, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is a fantastic plugin!!!
Been wanting something like this for ages. Well Done!!

There however is a bug of sorts: The tab close button ie: [x] disapears when the plugin is installed. I'm using Firefox 1.5.0.4. Be great if you can fix this, I would love to make use of your plugin.

Wald

7:51 PM, June 21, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nope, Tab Mix Plus doesn't help with missing tab close button. I installed it while CookiePie was disabled, but then I reinstalled TMP and even toggled this TMP option for close box.

3:34 PM, September 03, 2006  
Blogger srw said...

Did you try putting TMP after CookiePie in the extensions order? If not please provide the versions of TMP and Firefox used.

12:56 AM, September 06, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Reproducible under clean Knoppix live CD v. 5.
Firefox 1.5.0.3
TMP 0.3.0.5
CookiePie 0.5.4
No tab close button in any case, TMP after CookiePie or before.
But this not a problem, using close button on tabs "on-pointed-for" is ergonomic as well (or even more) and one gets soon used to it.

5:05 PM, September 14, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Reproducible under clean Knoppix live CD v. 5.
Firefox 1.5.0.3
TMP 0.3.0.5
CookiePie 0.5.4
No tab close button in any case, TMP after CookiePie or before.
But this not a problem, using close button on tabs "on-pointed-for" is ergonomic as well (or even more) and one gets soon used to it.

5:05 PM, September 14, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Not compatible with FireFox 2.0
Won't install :-(

8:04 PM, November 06, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for releasing this awesome plugin. I was looking for a patch or plugin for this very issue (where i had to log into 2 instances of the same site with sessions, and the session of one would leak into the other) when I came to your site. The plugin works flawlessly using firefox 1.5.08 on gentoo linux AMD64.

9:07 PM, November 16, 2006  
Blogger Justin Goldberg said...

To get cookiepie working with firefox 2.0, do this:

• Right Click the Install Link to download
• Rename the file with the extension: .zip
• Unzip the file
• Open install.rdf in a text editor.
• Change the line: 1.5.*
To: 2.0.*
• Save and close file.
• Zip (archive) the CONTENTS of the directory
• Rename the file to have the .xpi extension.
• Open in Firefox -- bingo!


Also there is CookieSwap, which works by quickly switching between profiles:
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3255/

9:37 PM, November 20, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hello,

I agree with one of the users here: I totally cannot see Cookie Pie when installed. I have Tab Mix Plus; I somewhat understood that it could tamper with tab context menu and hide Cookie Pie menu entries at all. But I am not sure and that's why I ask: how are we supposed to work with this plugin?

If you have known issues/conflicts with other plugins, please share them. Here is my setup:

OS: Windows XP Pro SP2
Firefox version: 1.5.0.8
Firefox plugins: Adblock, Add N Edit Cookies, Codetch, ColorZilla, CookiePie, CSSViewer, DOM Inspector, Download Statusbar, DownThemAll!, ErrorZilla Mod, FireBug, FireFTP, FlashGot, Gmail Space, Google Toolbar for Firefox, Html Validator (obviously), IE Tab, IE View, jsLib, Live HTTP Headers, NoScript, Nuke Anything Enhanced, Resizeable Textarea, Scrapbook, Screen grab!, SearchStatus, Slim Extension List, Tab Mix Plus, Talkback, Tamper Data, Tweak Network, UrlParams, User Agent Switcher, VideoDownloader, View formatted source, View Source Chart, Web Developer.

12:01 PM, November 22, 2006  
Blogger srw said...

Hi,

Please follow news about a next release of CookiePie subscribing to our mailing list at: CookiePie Mailing List

2:41 PM, November 26, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hy there.

Nice extension - why don't you publish this on the official mozilla (firefox) addons page? (http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/extensions)

I'm sure the popularity of the extensions will rapidly increase.

And I was looking for a extension like yours for months, or maybe even years.

Grz Chris

5:34 AM, February 07, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Excellent extension. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to support javascript reading of the cookie using document.cookie.

For example: I have Tab A with Cookiepie turned Off which uses cookie A. I also have a tab with Cookiepie On which uses cookie B. When I use javascript on Tab B to read the cookie, it returns cookie A (the wrong one).

This is a major issue for us, since we use javascript to pass the cookie when we do an ajax request. This is required for protection against cross-site request forgery when programming ajax methods (referred to as the "double-submit" method of guarding against CSRF).

Please let me know if you can confirm this bug (I'm using FF 2.0.0.2 on ubuntu linux) and if you will be able to release a new version of your extension to address this.

Thanks very much,
Dan

2:56 PM, March 26, 2007  
Blogger srw said...

Hi Dan,

Please post in our mailing list for further discussion.

Basicly CookiePie hooks at every level of cookie handling:
- Network
- Document getters and setters (we have tested it on ajax apps like gmail)

It's possible you have found a bug in CookiePie, we have experienced related problems with Google Chat on Gmail. Take into account CookiePie is doing some things formally impossible in FireFox since there is not direct or supported method to correlate a tab with networking requests/responses.

We are analyzing the comments submitted and plan to do a new release in less than two months.
Your software or site using ajax is freely available? if it's the case will be good to add it to our tests.

5:55 PM, March 26, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hello,

can I please ask how does this extension compare / contrast with CookieSwap :-
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3255

I'd be grateful if someone familiar with both could give a quick overview of the differences.

thanks a lot,
Lee
England

10:56 PM, May 14, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hello,

can I please ask how does this extension compare / contrast with CookieSwap :-
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3255

I'd be grateful if someone familiar with both could give a quick overview of the differences.

thanks a lot,
Lee
England

10:58 PM, May 14, 2007  
Blogger srw said...

Lee, CookiePie enables you to have different accounts simultaneously on each tab, doesn't require to swap between them. If you have three mail accounts you can see all of them on each tab at the same time.

11:50 PM, May 14, 2007  
Blogger The Open Sourcerer said...

Hi, great extension - I use it for accessing two eBay accounts simultaneously. The Only problem I experiance is when I want to print an invoice from eBay. It opens a new window to display the invoice. Unfortunately, it appears as though the new window doesn't inherit the CookiePie settings. So it works for the first account, but for the second account (the one with CookiePie enabled) it fails with a non-descript error message from eBay. I guess it just can't authorise the display...

I see this mentioned on the to-do list. Just wanted to give it some priority if possible. Many thanks

Alan

4:55 AM, May 24, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi,

Great Extension. Simply wonderful. I just wanted to point out a few problems, however.
1) If I have a tab open with CookiePie turned on, and I rearrange the tabs, such that the ordinal number (the order) of the CookiePie tab changes, the CookiePie settings no longer work. If I move the CookiePie tab itself, the CookiePie icon disappears. If I move/delete other tabs, it remains, but again, if the order changes, the settings are lost. Restoring the order of the CookiePie tab, by adding or moving the tabs (and toggling CookiePie on, if necessary), appears to restore the session. So from what I can see, the CookiePie information is stored based on the ordinal number, and this ordinal number is not updated when tabs are moved or deleted.

2) I have been unable to determine the exact circumstances under which this occurs, but while trying to log into SquirrelMail, I recieve less than consistent separation of cookie management between CooliePie-enabled and non-CookiePie-enabled sites. If I start with a closed browser and log into two sites, one with CookiePie, and another without, the separation appears to work. However, at some point subsequent to opening the browser, the is separation no longer complete. What do I mean by "no longer complete"? The symptoms are described below:

a) Tab 1 is logged into SquirrelMail without CookiePie on one email account (e.g. account1@mydomain.com) .
b) Tab 2 is opened, cookie pie is enabled, and an attempt to connect to the logged in (non-CookiePie) session fails (as it should fail). I click the link to go to the login screen.
c) After logging in with a different account (e.g. account2@mydomain.com) to SquirrelMail, I access the first account's inbox (account1@mydomain.com), even though the login credentials entered were for account2@mydomain.com.
d) It should be noted that subequent log-out log-in process result in the same behavior. Once CookiePie attains this state, the only way to reset it is to close the browser completely and restart it.

I'm using FF 2.0.0.7 and CookiePie 0.5.5

Once again, thanks for a great extension.

Eric

1:30 PM, October 05, 2007  
Blogger Unknown said...

Doesn't work with gmail anymore. Used to work up until a week or so ago. Running Firefox 2.0.0.9 and CookipePie 0.5.5. When I try logging in to Gmail, I get a Firefox error page.

----

The page isn't redirecting properly.

Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.

This problem can sometimes be caused by disabling or refusing to accept cookies.
----

CookieSwap still works, but I prefer the CookiePie interface. Alas.

3:15 PM, November 17, 2007  
Blogger srw said...

Now is working with Gmail again and now you can chat between different accounts!

Download new version from Cookiepie 1.0.0

6:44 PM, December 04, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Is it again not working with gmail ?

11:17 PM, January 24, 2008  
Blogger @obfuscatedMind said...

not working for me as well, I get the message:

The page isn't redirecting properly

Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.

* This problem can sometimes be caused by disabling or refusing to accept cookies.

I used the latest 1.0 version!! :(

7:05 AM, June 03, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

well ok,
but is there any way to solve this conflict?

any new version of the extension maybe?

or any fix we need to make to some css file or sth like that?

5:00 AM, September 24, 2008  

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