Bubble sets cookies in the browsers of users who visit Bubble-built apps, in order to remember who the user is, and communicate information to the user's web browser necessary for displaying the page.
By default, when a user visits a Bubble app without logging in, we assign them a temporary user account. This lets you use the "Make Changes to Current User" action to store data about the user, which then gets transferred to their permanent user account if they subsequently sign up for your app.
Many websites, in order to protect their users' privacy and comply with regulations, are adopting a policy of asking users for consent before setting any cookies in the user's web browser. This option is designed to assist with that.
When you select "Do not set cookies on new visitors by default", Bubble will not create temporary user accounts in the database for visitors who are not logged in, and will not set cookies. Bubble will only set cookies when one of two things happen: 1) you call the "Opt-in to Cookies" action, which will create a temporary user object in the database, or 2) the user signs up or logs into your app, which requires cookies.
When using this option, it is your responsibility to inform the user that your app uses cookies in order to provide the app's functionality, and to call the "Opt-in to Cookies" action or a sign up action only once the user has indicated their consent.
(You may also choose to enable this option purely for performance reasons, since displaying a web page to a new visitor will generally be slightly faster and less capacity-intensive if we don't create a new temporary user).
We also provide an action "Opt-out from cookies" that you can use to give the user the ability to retract their consent. Calling this action will wipe all Bubble cookies from the user's browser. Note that logging into Bubble requires cookies to function properly, so calling this on a logged in user is not recommended; instead, to support the case of a user leaving your app, delete their account.
When a user who has not yet opted in to cookies interacts with your app, you may still use the "Make Changes to Current User" option to store information. However, this information will not be stored on Bubble's web servers, and if the user closes their browser window, the information will be permanently lost. On opt-in or sign up, any data stored in this way will be transferred to the new temporary or permanent user that gets created.
Note that this setting only controls cookies set by Bubble as part of its core functionality. Bubble plugins may still set cookies. We are exposing the ability to check whether or not the user has opted in to cookies to plugin developers, and encourage them to make sure their plugin complies with the user's settings, but we don't have the means to enforce this. Please test your app to ensure that it is not setting any cookies that you want to avoid adding.
Turning on this setting will not affect anyone who has already visited your app: temporary users created for those visitors will continue to exist, as will the cookies we use to remember them. Using this setting will prevent any iframe (using the HTML element or Video element) from using cookies, so some third-party websites (like Vimeo) embedded this way may stop working when users haven't consented to cookies, as they may mandate cookies in order to work.