Revive Adserver, cookies, Google Chrome v80

Summary: With the release of version 5.0.4 of Revive Adserver on January 21, 2020, our software is now fully prepared for the upcoming changes regarding third-party cookies in Google Chrome v80.

In more detail

As announced by Google, Google Chrome v80 is due to be pushed to users in February 2020. This version implements what Google calls a “secure-by-default model for cookies”. Mozilla’s Firefox and Microsoft’s Edge are set to also implement this in the near future.

Instead of trying to explain what this means, we would like to recommend having a look at the article posted on the Webmaster Central blog, Get Ready for New SameSite=None; Secure Cookie Settings.

In case you find it hard to understand this rather technical article by Google, you could also have a look at article WTF is Chrome’s SameSite cookie update? On Digiday.com, which has a somewhat more humorous take on the matter.

We released Revive Adserver v5.0.3 on January 14th, 2020, including some changes to the way we set cookies, with the aim of supporting the new directive. Unfortunately, the changes were not entirely successful, and a few days later we became aware of several issues affecting cookies. While the ad server still worked, several features that require cookies, for example frequency capping, did not.

These issues have been tackled with priority. On January 21, 202, we released Revive Adserver v5.0.4, which fixes the earlier cookie issues and made some additional improvements to how Revive Adserver deals with cookies.

We recommend updating to Revive Adserver v5.0.4 at your earliest convenience, so that you’re fully prepared for the release of Chrome v80 next month.

Don’t want to update yourself?

Alternatively, if you don’t want to spend any time on keeping the software up to date, we also have a Hosted edition that you can subscribe to. This is a Software-as-a-Service offering that uses the exact same software, and that will always be kept up to date with the most recent version. All you have to do is sign up, log in and use it.