What is the percentage of users that block cookies in their web browser?

Question

What is the percentage of web users that use either cookie blocking software for their web browsers or software that blocks Google Analytics tracking?

Solution

None of those blocking tools report [expose] themselves to trend trackers so you gotta count the extension market users. Example, the Google analytics opt-out extension in the play store has 295,842 users out of the billions that use the internet. Thats like nothing in the scope of internet users. And thats just Google analytics block, not all cookies block.

As far as the rest of cookies, they are generally useful and far less people want to block them for obvious reasons: they don't want to lose their cart, they want to stay signed in across apps, they just want a hassle-free experience from a site that has memory of them.

That being said, I would guess at most something less than .001% of web users block all cookies. Thats 1 million folks per billion users.

Comments

[Admin]

What constitutes a blocked cookie for you? Are users that delete cookies daily considered "blocked"?

[Admin]

Yeah even that is considered a blocked cookie. Basically any cookie that doesn't follow it's normal predetermined web app life cycle and is deleted/unset by external intervention, either by a javascript browser extension or a user that deletes his browsing data. For example, everytime the universal analytics javascript code sets the _ga cookie, that cookie is then unset by a cookie blocking software.

[Admin]

I allow cookies by default because it keeps you signed in. If you're worried about security, block cookies. Doing so will skew Google Analytics.

[george]

Your estimations make me happy :)

[dhaupin]

@george Haha yeah man its totally off the hip est, but its a good question to ponder. I think due to browser securities locking down cookies, less affiliate stuffing, CORS, and AD opt-outs, the number of full cookie-blockers will decrease while the number of analytics/ads blocks increase. Should leave a growing window for legit cookies to work again while more nefarious ones will consistently be auto-blocked by stock browsers. So if its a utility cookie, I think you're good to go.

[tadasajon]

1 million is 0.1% of 1 billion, not 0.001%.

[WGroleau]

I'm probably a minority, but I run a periodic script that deletes all cookies from domains not on my "whitelist." I add a domain to the whitelist IFF it's needed for things to work there AND I think they aren't using it for purposes I disapprove of. So many abusers that a whitelist is easier than a blacklist.