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Free Plugin by Nicola Modugno v2.3.2

Smart Cookie Kit

Preventive blocking of third party cookies for GDPR/EU Cookie Law/ePrivacy. Translatable, cacheable, lightweight, powerful!

Smart Cookie Kit

The facts

Rating
5★ from 40
Active installs
3k+
Price
Free
Last updated
6 Oct 2023
Added
Dec 2015
Requires WP
4.6
Tested up to
WP 5.6.19
Downloads
62,820

Our analysis

AI-assisted

Smart Cookie Kit is a WordPress plugin designed for managing cookie consent in compliance with GDPR. It blocks cookies until users accept them and does so asynchronously, which enhances server performance and user experience without requiring page refreshes.

This plugin is suitable for marketing-oriented websites, as it effectively manages scripts and conversion tracking while allowing compatibility with caching systems. It automatically modifies scripts, iframes, and images to ensure compliance and provides a cookie policy link in the banner without displaying the banner on that page.

Best for: This plugin suits marketing-oriented websites that require GDPR compliance for cookie management.

What it does well

  • Blocks cookies until user consent is given
  • Asynchronous unblocking of scripts without page refresh
  • Compatible with caching systems
  • Automatically modifies scripts and iframes
  • Includes link to cookie policy in the banner

Where it falls short

  • Limited information on additional features or settings

Verdict

Smart Cookie Kit offers a straightforward solution for cookie management, particularly for users focused on performance and compliance. It may be a good choice if you need to balance user experience with legal requirements.

From the developer

Nicola Modugno's own description of Smart Cookie Kit, lightly tidied.

!!! Version 2.2 of plugin is compatible with Gutenberg for translations
!!! Version 2.1 of plugin is fully compatible with WPML and Polylang to easly manage texts translations !!!
!!! Version 2 of plugin is GDPR compliant – Cookie name for user preferences is now “CookiePreferences-[wp_install_dir]” !!!

Like others plugin, Smart Cookie Kit blocks cookies until the visitor accepts them, but it unlocks them asyncronously (without refreshing the current page): this logic increases server performance, improve user experience, and, more important, makes the plugin compatible with cache plugins!!
Thinked for marketing-oriented sites, this plugin blocks standard scripts and conversion/remarketing scripts (including the “noscript” tag too).

Why I decided to create this plugin?
There are a lot of plugins for cookies management… But:

  • Many work on the server, modifying some code portions directly in the output: if is there a cache system, it will cache the page in the version for the user that “fired” the cache creation (with modified scripts if the user has not accepted cookies, or with the original scripts if the cookies were accepted), and that version will be served to ALL visitors, regardless of their acceptance.
    The problem: it is not possible use cache systems.

  • When user accepts cookies, it is necessary to open another page to have original scripts working. A lot of plugin have done a step forward, making an automatic refresh of the visited page, but web servers have to work again to serve the “correct” page and this may be a serious problem with slow connections (think to mobile devices), heavy pages (without cached pages!!), pages with external resources (Youtube videos, Ads, Social Plugins, …). Has it ever appened that you start reading some content or jump below to search content of interest and the page scrolls back on the top because of a refresh?!
    The problem: worst server performance and user experience.

  • Many lets specify a page that contains cookie policy (to link that in the banner), but often they show the cookie banner in that page too.
    This is not a big problem, I know, but it is a detail! 😉

I searched for a plugins that would not unblock cookies directly in the output from the server, to permit the use of cache systems; more over, I would like “things” faster and smoother without page refreshes and heavy loads.
My research had not satisfactory results (for me), so I decided to write my own plugin!

The main functionality are the following:

  • It recognises and modify automatically scripts, iframes and images to block them (the block happens directly in the output from the server).

  • It permits you to tag code to block.

  • It shows the cookie banner only if it is necessary.

  • It includes in the banner the link to your cookie policy page, and it does not show the banner in that page!

  • Once the user accepts the policy (or when policy is already accepted), it unblocks and run scripts via javascript, without a page refresh. Being via javascript, the unblock happens even if there are active cache systems!

Support

Please write on the WordPress official support area: https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/smart-cookie-kit
For questions, support or suggestions, you could write to: info[-at-]nicolamodugno[-dot-]it

Read the full description on the official page →

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