This browser extension gets rid of every cookie pop-up on every site

By Chris Hachey

Published Feb 1, 2026, 1:00 PM EST

Chris Hachey is a contributor for MakeUseOf with years of experience covering consumer tech. He has been published on XDA-developers.com, Pocket-lint.com, BGR.com, and other tech sites. He is passionate about finding great deals on tech, testing out new consumer electronics, and sharing his insights into smart home devices.

From Bluetooth speakers and earbuds to 2-in-1 laptops, Chris has tested hundreds of products to provide his audience with real analysis on how well something works. When he’s not looking for the latest and greatest in tech, he’s probably spending too much time on his phone, playing with his dog or daughter, or watching his favorite sports teams. Follow him on X @hach_tag

Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents:

Browsing the internet and being constantly bombarded by requests for cookies can get frustrating. There are some reasons why you might want to use cookies and deal with pop-ups. You may want targeted ads and to get better suggestions for your streaming options. You may also not want to type in passwords and usernames every time you visit a website.

While cookies can be good, some people get bothered by them. Many times, they are meant to store data from a user’s browser. Sites want to track users to serve them better. But there are plenty of sites that will do negative things, such as tracking users’ data and potentially leaking it to third parties. There’s a lot of malicious intent and security vulnerabilities that can come from sharing the wrong kinds of cookies. That’s why I use Consent-O-Matic, a browser extension that eliminates me having to deal with any cookie pop-ups that I don’t want to.

Those “Allow” pop-ups aren’t harmless. Some browser permissions can spam you, track you, or expose your data—often more quietly than malware.

By Kanika Gogia

Dec 18, 2025

Consent-O-Matic puts you in control of your cookies

You can give up as much as you want

Consent-O-Matic is an open-source extension that was built and maintained by Aarhus University in Denmark. While it offers protection against violators of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), it also works well globally.

When you install Consent-O-Matic, you can immediately open it up and can customize it for yourself. The first page gives you five sections to toggle on or keep off. The makers of Consent-O-Matic took into account 680 different pop-ups and broke them down into five categories.

• Preferences and Functionality
• Performance and Analytics
• Information Storage and Access
• Content Selection, Delivery, and Reporting
• Ad Selection, Delivery, and Reporting

Basically, Consent-O-Matic has boiled down the most common types of cookie pop-ups and allows you to decide which kinds you want to interact with. If the answer is none, you can leave them all toggled off. For Preferences and Functionality, this includes allowing sites to remember your usernames and passwords as well as any customizations you’ve made for specific websites. If you always change the font size when you visit Financial Times, toggling this on will let the website continue to remember that.

Performance and Analytics reports back to a website on how you’re using it. It lets the site count your visits and keep logs of the traffic in order to better improve. It provides them with information about where you are accessing the site from as well, so the site can better understand its visitors. Information Storage and Access gives access to information from your device, such as ad identifiers and other cookies, to the website.

Content and Ad Selection, Delivery, and Reporting are what you normally think of when you think of cookies. These track the kinds of content that you’re looking at and the ads that you’re interacting with and take the information in order to better deliver more content and ads like it. This is the kind of tracking that many people get upset with.

Consent-O-Matic in action is fun to watch

I don’t have to deal with annoying pop-ups

I choose to leave Preferences and Functionality toggled on and the rest off because I don’t like having to revisit usernames and passwords. I have gone about my normal use of the internet and my computer and seen the minimized pop-up window that Consent-O-Matic shows when it blocks a cookie pop-up.

The pages do tend to stop loading while the cookie pop-ups are being dealt with, so you aren’t able to use the site for a few seconds. This can be a bit frustrating if the page has a lot of pop-ups to deal with. But, I’ll take that over having to deal with clicking through the pop-ups as I’m using the site.

You can opt for the little pop-up window as you see above, or you can hide the pop-up entirely. Consent-O-Matic allows you to make changes on the fly any time you want, as you can click on the extension and click on More Add-On Settings, which brings you back to the initial page that you used.

The extension wants feedback

It’s nice to be able to offer criticism

As is the case with open-source extensions or software, others are able to provide feedback or adjust the program as they see fit. For Consent-O-Matic, you can add additional pop-ups that should be blocked in the system. Users can enter the plugin source, the custom rules, and the pasted JSON or can create rules on their own.

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The work is verified by the creators, allowing the extension to continue working well. Another way to get through to the creators is to click on the extension when you’re visiting a website and a pop-up appears that should have been blocked.

Users can click on the Let us know! button and report it back to the developers. The site is then added to the list for review by them to help the extension improve its accuracy. While I’ve been using the extension, I’ve reported only one pop-up, so it has been pretty accurate for my tastes.

Consent-O-Matic stops cookie pop-ups from appearing

My go-to extension for stopping cookie pop-ups has been Consent-O-Matic. This European-created extension has worked well in my Chrome browser and allows the cookie pop-ups that I am okay with and blocks the ones that I don’t want. It gives users a preference on what is presented to them and allows them to report and create rules for any cookie pop-ups that sneak by.