What is the "Self-Destructing Cookies" extension and how does it work?

When the extension is enabled by pressing the action button (when the button is not gray), it either deletes cookies or converts them to session-only cookies. To delete cookies when there is no tab with the recently closed hostname, use the "Destroy cookies when the tab is closed" option from the context menu over the action button. To convert cookies to session-only, use "Destroy cookies when the browser is closed". In this mode, the extension removes the recently generated cookies and deletes their expiration date. When there is no expiration date, the browser considers cookies as session-only. The session-only cookies are valid until the browser's last window is closed. They all get deleted after a browser restart. This is useful for instance, to be logged into your Gmail account only for this session. If there are some hostnames that you would like the extension to skip the deletion or cookie modification, you can add them to the exception list either from the right-click context menu or from the options page.

As of version 0.2.0, the extension highlights the last delete or modify action if you place your mouse over the action button.

How can I add a single domain to the whitelist so that cookies are kept between browser sessions?

Open a new browser tab targeting this domain, and right-click on the toolbar button and hit the "Add to the whitelist" item. This way the domain is placed in the whitelist and the extension does not interact with those cookies that originated from this domain in both "session" and "tabs" modes. Note that both "session" and "tabs" mode share the same whitelist filtering rules. To delete the hostname from the whitelist, go to the options page and clear the hostname and then press the "save" button. It is possible to add multiple hostnames from the options page as well.

Is it possible to temporarily disable the extension?

Yes, simply left-click on the toolbar button once. When the icon is colorful, the extension is active and when it is grayed out, the extension is disabled. By placing the mouse over the toolbar button you can see the current status and if it is active, you will see the mode of operation ("tabs" or "session").

What's new in this version?

Please check the Logs section.

How can I change the operation mode from "session" to "tabs" and wise-versa?

Use the right-click items over the toolbar button. There are two options in a radio group to select your preferred mode of operation.

How can I make sure the extension is operating when it is active?

The extension reports the last 5 cookie interactions in the tooltip area of the toolbar button. When your mouse is placed on top of the toolbar button, you will see these logs. For instance, in the "tabs" mode, open a browser tab and, load a website and then close the tab. You should get a new line reporting the total number of blocked cookies for this hostname in a new line. For "session" mode, once a new cookie with an expiration time is generated, the extension deletes the expiration date and adds a new line to the log section containing the name of the cookie and its origin.

The default hostname matching is limited. Is it possible to use a more complex pattern to match a URL (for instance, to support subdomains or a path that contains a keyword)?

As of version 0.2.0, this extension supports the standard "URLPattern" matching. For example, if you would like to add "https://www.example.com" to the exception list, you can either use "www.example.com" or "*.example.com" from the options page. Note that "example.com" does not match with subdomains. For advanced usage, provide a URLPattern-compatible JSON object. For instance {"hostname": "*.example.com"} matches all URLs that ends with example.com in their hostname. See URLPattern Documentation on Mozilla for all supported keys. Note that the input must be a valid JSON object. In case of an error in the provided pattern, the browser console displays a warning, and the pattern gets ignored.