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Over the last couple of days I've had half a dozen users report to me that Samsung Internet has broken my website. (Although of course none of them realise this, they think the site is broken). Essentially it's blocking session cookies I believe. Can't log in, can't add an item to the basket. Quite important things!

The default settings of the browser when I test it are:

Settings > Sites and downloads > Site permissions > Cookies > Allow all cookies
Privacy > Smart anti-tracking > Always

If I turn the smart anti-tracking off, the site works again. It claims that the only thing it's found and blocked is Google Analytics... But site broken with it on, site working with it off.

Anyone have further insight or advice of how to deal with this?

Edit for now I've resorted to an ugly message upon sniffing the UA string, advising people to use a different browser. ☹

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  • I had never heard of this browser before, but I'm not sure how I missed it. According to this it has been 3% of the global browser market since 2017.
    – Stephen Ostermiller ♦
    May 12, 2022 at 13:12
  • The smart anti-tracking feature described here as "Automatically remove tracking cookies to prevent websites from seeing where you go on the web" is worded like it would prevent 3rd-party cookies that track usage across many sites. Are your "log in" and "add to cart" functionality implemented with first-party cookies?
    – Stephen Ostermiller ♦
    May 12, 2022 at 13:16
  • Yep, and I'm certainly not up to anything dodgy. Just using boggo PHP sessions to remember login & cart. It shows me what it's blocked when I visit my site, and all it shows as being blocked is google analytics.
    – Codemonkey
    May 12, 2022 at 13:22
  • "advising people to use a different browser." - Or to disable "Smart anti-tracking"? Presumably this can be disabled on a site-by-site basis?
    – MrWhite
    May 13, 2022 at 17:29
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    This issue has gone away now, without me changing anything, and without my installation of Samsung Internet changing. My phone DID do an OS update 9 days ago, maybe that fixed it. Or maybe the app phones home to Samsung and something changed at their end.
    – Codemonkey
    May 25, 2022 at 11:34

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Smart Anti Tracking has to be disabled on my Samsung galaxy s10e to make Samsung Internet usable for some standard websites such as BBC. Completely unusable otherwise. I'm surprised there's not more fuss about it.

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  • If you look it up on the Play store, and view reviews, and sort by most recent, there's plenty of people griping there. But I've seen no mention of the issue on various webdev forums/subreddits etc. 🤷‍♂️
    – Codemonkey
    May 13, 2022 at 15:44
  • "or Chrome" - Is "Smart Anti Tracking" a phone feature, not just a browser feature?!
    – MrWhite
    May 13, 2022 at 15:56
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    Regarding Chrome, my mistake, Smart Anti Tracking is browser specific, not phone. The problem isn't there with Chrome.
    – Robert Cochran
    May 13, 2022 at 16:33
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    This issue has gone away now, without me changing anything, and without my installation of Samsung Internet changing. My phone DID do an OS update 9 days ago, maybe that fixed it. Or maybe the app phones home to Samsung and something changed at their end.
    – Codemonkey
    May 25, 2022 at 11:34

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