EditThisCookie Is Gone — Now What?
In late 2024, EditThisCookie — the most popular cookie editor for Chrome with millions of users — was removed from the Chrome Web Store. The reason: it never migrated to Manifest V3.
Overnight, millions of developers and testers lost their go-to cookie management tool. I saw an opportunity and built CookieJar — a modern, MV3-native cookie editor with features EditThisCookie never had.
What CookieJar Does Differently
1. Automatic Cookie Classification
EditThisCookie showed you a flat list of cookies. CookieJar automatically classifies every cookie into 6 categories:
- Essential — Session tokens, CSRF tokens, auth cookies
- Functional — Language preferences, UI settings
- Analytics — Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Hotjar trackers
- Advertising — Facebook Pixel, Google Ads, retargeting cookies
- Social — Social media widgets, share buttons
- Unknown — Unclassified cookies
Classification uses a combination of:
- Pattern matching on cookie names (e.g.,
_ga→ Analytics) - Domain matching against the Disconnect.me tracking list
- Heuristic analysis of cookie attributes (HttpOnly, SameSite, expiry)
2. Privacy Score
Every site gets a 0-100 privacy score displayed as a circular gauge in the popup header. The score factors in:
- Number and type of tracking cookies
- Presence of third-party cookies
- Cookie security attributes (Secure, HttpOnly, SameSite)
- Total cookie count relative to category average
A developer can instantly see whether a site's cookie practices are reasonable.
3. Profile Management
Save and restore cookie sets as profiles:
- Testing multi-role authentication? Save "Admin" and "User" profiles
- Switching between staging and production? One click
- Debugging OAuth flows? Save pre-auth and post-auth states
4. Export Formats
CookieJar exports cookies in 5 formats:
- JSON (for programmatic use)
- Netscape/curl format (for cURL commands)
- HTTP Header format (for direct API testing)
- Puppeteer format (for automation scripts)
- CookieJar format (for import into another CookieJar instance)
Technical Architecture
MV3 Cookie Access
In MV3, cookie access requires the cookies permission and proper host permissions:
{
"permissions": ["cookies", "storage"],
"host_permissions": ["<all_urls>"]
}
The chrome.cookies API provides methods for reading, setting, and removing cookies. CookieJar wraps these in a type-safe abstraction layer.
Real-Time Updates
CookieJar uses chrome.cookies.onChanged to show real-time cookie updates without polling. When a site sets, modifies, or deletes a cookie, the popup updates instantly.
Performance
With sites sometimes having 50+ cookies, rendering performance matters. CookieJar uses:
- Virtual scrolling for large cookie lists
- Debounced search filtering
- Lazy classification (classify on first view, cache results)
8-Language Localization
CookieJar ships with full localization in:
English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Korean, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese
All UI text goes through a localization system — no hardcoded strings.
Privacy Commitment
CookieJar itself collects zero data. No analytics, no tracking, no server communication. All cookie data stays in your browser. The irony of a cookie management tool that tracks you would not be lost on developers.
Installation
CookieJar is free and available on the Chrome Web Store.
Pro features (profile management, bulk operations, export) are available for $4.99/month.
Built by S-Hub — Chrome extensions for developers and productivity enthusiasts.
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See all extensions at dev-tools-hub.xyz
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