Google has decided to keep third-party cookies. New opportunities for indie founders.

Two days ago, Google announced that they will not remove third-party cookies from Chrome.

Why this is a big deal: A huge percentage of web apps rely on cookies to function.

oogle announced that third-party cookies would be removed from Chrome several years ago.

They even released a timeline for removing cookies and revised that timeline several times.

That is, until two days ago, when they abandoned the plan altogether.

The state of third-party cookies in other browsers

Firefox blocks third-party cookies that track you, but they allow so-called "functional cookies" (think: Facebook login, Amazon Pay) that websites require to work properly.

Safari also blocks most third-party cookies by default.

Chrome holds a 65% market share in the browsers market, therefore this choice has big implications...

...and it opens up a whole range of opportunities for indie founders like us.

New opportunities for indie founders

• User-friendly cookie manager. Privacy-conscious users will be now looking for more ways to, well, protect their privacy after this change. Create a Chrome extension that tells users how many third-party cookies they have, how long they've been active, etc.

• An extension to completely block cookies - There are several of them already on the Chrome Web Store, and our guess is that they'll get a boost in popularity following this change.

• Advanced analytics - Marketers were hesitant to use tools like these because they relied on third-party cookies (which marketers were aware would soon disappear). Things have changed, and marketers' tools for analytics/retargeting/etc. will get more acceptance.

• Make integrations easier. - This is a feature rather than a software idea.

We've seen a lot of online software that were previously simple to use because of third-party cookies become more difficult as the founders sought an alternative for keeping their software usable.

For example, if you provided an analytics service that relied on websites embedding basic code, you'd now need to provide a tutorial on how to convert the third-party cookie into a first-party cookie, which frequently involves the user to edit their server-side code.

This had an impact on adoption: the more difficult something is, the less likely individuals are to do it.

Google keeping third-party cookies means that you can now (again) offer simplifies tutorials to start using your software.