> 80% of the time, for all online services, users get the choice to opt-out from the tracking
That's purely theoretical. My browser is sending to not track headers, I've uBlock turned on, I nearly always reject tracking, yet I periodically delete thousands of cookies.
(In case there are bored Safari extension developers who read this and feel the same: an extension that allows to whitelist cookies and rejects everything else would be nice.)
Try the (very unhelpfully named) Cookie app. It’s a little sketchy looking and the website is poorly designed but seems to work for me. Get the non-app store one.
(No affiliation, I’m also evaluating it as we speak)
I ran into that one last year when I tried to locate an extension, and didn't rule out buying it, but I ruled out using it because it didn't seem open source. I get that devs need to get rewarded for their time and so forth. But in this day and age where popular extensions get purchased and repurposed as spyware, I'm not keen on installing anything closed source that messes around with my browser. And it's a red flag, for me, that an extension developer doing something that revolves around privacy isn't like minded. (Plus, as you said yourself, it looks sketchy for some reason.)
I do understand this mindset (and I'm running a privacy-oriented open source app: https://getaether.net, so speaking from personal experience), however, not everything can be open source, and not everything can be free. There is a place for proprietary software, and the more we deny that, the more creators of those open source software join Googles and Facebooks of the world and make them even more invincible.
The blanket 'not open source, so I won't use it' general sentiment (not implying you have this) I see on HN nowadays doesn't hurt Google, it hurts small software makers that don't have the luxury and money to make things 'free*' with five asterisks like FAANG, like you and me, and actually strengthens the larger companies.
The trust issue is a legit one, though. I have the same concerns on that one. However, if I could fully trust it, I would have no problem with it being not open source.
It's not for Safari, but Firefox has container tabs, where this data is isolated per-container.
With the Temporary Containers extension, basically everyone gets their own container by default, and all that gets deleted 15 minutes after the container's last tab is closed.
That's purely theoretical. My browser is sending to not track headers, I've uBlock turned on, I nearly always reject tracking, yet I periodically delete thousands of cookies.
(In case there are bored Safari extension developers who read this and feel the same: an extension that allows to whitelist cookies and rejects everything else would be nice.)