Test your site to see how it performs without third-party cookies. That will help you begin the process of transitioning to alternative solutions.
Chrome flags for testing
The best way to test your site for breakage without third-party cookies in Chrome is to use the third-party cookie phaseout flag. This flag makes Chrome behave as it will be after third-party cookie deprecation, so it's ideal for testing the user experience without cross-site cookies. There are two ways to set the flag:
- Enable
chrome://flags/#test-third-party-cookie-phaseout
- Run Chrome from the command line with the flag
--test-third-party-cookie-phaseout
This flag sets Chrome to block third-party cookies, and ensures that new features and temporary mitigations are active.
You can test your site by browsing with third-party cookies blocked using chrome://settings/cookies
, but the phaseout flag ensures that the new and updated features are also enabled. Blocking third-party cookies is a good approach to detecting issues, but doesn't necessarily help you validate you have fixed them.
If you maintain an active test suite for your sites, then you should do two side-by-side runs: one with Chrome on the usual settings, and one with the same version of Chrome launched with the --test-third-party-cookie-phaseout
flag. Any test failures in the second run and not in the first are good candidates to investigate for third-party cookie dependencies.
Test specific third-party cookie deprecation scenarios
In addition to --test-third-party-cookie-phaseout
, there are flags available
for specific testing scenarios, such as participation in deprecation trials:
- All the following flags are supported on Windows, Mac, Linux, ChromeOS, and Android.
- These flags can be set from the chrome://flags page or from the command line.
- To set flags for multiple features from the command line with
--enable-features
or--disable-features
, add a comma between each feature name. - You can work out the value to use for a command-line flag by setting the
flag from
chrome://flags
, and then viewing Command Line values on thechrome://version
page.
Test with temporary mitigations blocked
When testing your site with the phaseout flag, temporary mitigations such as the third-party cookie deprecation trials and grace period may mean that third-party cookies are not restricted by your site or the third-party services it accesses.
To ensure that temporary mitigations don't mask breakage, you can test your site with flags to block mitigations:
- First-party deprecation trial: Top-Level Third-Party Cookie Deprecation Trial Grants for Testing
- Third-party deprecation trial: Third-party Cookie Deprecation Trial Grants for Testing
- Grace period: Third-Party Cookie Deprecation Metadata Grants for Testing
The following table shows how to use these flags, and explains their effect when disabled or enabled.
Name | Purpose | Min version | chrome://flags | Command-line flag |
---|---|---|---|---|
Tracking Protection for 3PCD | Enabled: turn on Tracking
Protection: • Show the eye icon UI in the address bar (Omnibox) to allow the user to temporarily enable third-party cookies for a site. • Provide chrome://settings/trackingProtection
instead of chrome://settings/cookies |
121 | #tracking-protection-3pcd |
--enable-features=TrackingProtection3pcd
--disable-features=TrackingProtection3pcd |
Test Third Party Cookie Phaseout | Disabled: this is the default. (No effect.) Enabled: Restrict third-party cookies and enable Tracking Protection UI to match the behavior of Chrome after third-party cookie phaseout. This setting overrides the BlockThirdPartyCookies=false
Chrome Enterprise policy, but is overridden by content settings, such
as those granted by the Storage Access API or the
CookiesAllowedForUrls
policy. Flags and settings describes how user settings interact with this flag. |
121 | #test-third-party-cookie-phaseout |
--test-third-party-cookie-phaseout |
Third-party Cookie Deprecation Trial Grants for Testing | Enabled: this is the default. Allow participation in the Third-party
cookie deprecation trial. (This flag no longer needs to be set to
Enabled to take part in the trial.) Disabled: make Chrome behave as if a third-party deprecation trial token has not been provided, even if it has. In other words: disable the third-party deprecation trial. This can be useful for testing that longer-term fixes are working, without third-party cookies, on a site participating in the deprecation trial. To have an effect, this flag requires #tracking-protection-3pcd to be enabled. |
121 | #third-party-cookie-deprecation-trial |
--enable-features=TpcdSupportSettings
--disable-features=TpcdSupportSettings |
Top-Level Third-Party Cookie Deprecation Trial Grants for Testing | Enabled: Required to allow the Top-level
third-party cookie deprecation trial. Disabled: as with the third-party trial, make Chrome behave as if a valid trial token has not been provided, even if it has. In other words: disable the first-party deprecation trial. This can be useful for testing that longer-term fixes are working, without third-party cookies, on a site participating in the first-party deprecation trial. |
122 | #top-level-third-party-cookie-deprecation-trial |
--enable-features=TopLevelTpcdSupportSettings
--disable-features=TopLevelTpcdSupportSettings |
Third-Party Cookie Deprecation Metadata Grants for Testing | Enabled: this is the default. Allow the third-party cookie grace
period to take effect. Disabled: Make Chrome behave as if the [grace period](https://goo.gle/3pcd-grace-period) is not in effect. This can also be used to check that your site has deployed deprecation trial tokens correctly, before the grace period ends (for a site that is subject to the grace period). |
121 | #tpcd-metadata-grants |
--enable-features=TpcdMetadataGrants
--disable-features=TpcdMetadataGrants |
Third-party Cookie Phase Out Facilitated Testing | Enabled: this is the default. Allow a Chrome-facilitated
testing group experiment arm to be set for this Chrome
client. Disabled: don't allow an experiment arm to be set by Chrome. Other values: manually set a specific experiment arm. Most developers will need to use one of the Enabled
Force settings. These bypass eligibility checks and
predictably place the Chrome client into the selected group arm. The
Enabled settings allow the client to be included in an
experiment arm, but don't force inclusion. |
121 | #tpc-phase-out-facilitated-testing |
--enable-features=CookieDeprecationFacilitatedTesting
--disable-features=CookieDeprecationFacilitatedTesting
For other values, command-line values depend on the setting. For example, to set Enabled Force Control 1 :
--enable-features=CookieDeprecationFacilitatedTesting:force_eligible/true/disable_3p_cookies/false/disable_ads_apis/false/label/fake_control_1%2E1/version/9994 If you need to set these values from the command line, it's probably easiest to set the value from chrome://flags , restart
the browser, then copy the flag value from the Command Line section of the chrome://version page.
|
Third-party Cookie Grants Heuristics Testing | Default: allow heuristics-based
mitigations. Enabled: no effect. (Same as Default.) Disabled: don't allow heuristics-based mitigations. This can be useful for testing that other longer-term fixes (without third-party cookies) are working as expected without heuristics mitigations. Other flag values are as follows. CurrentInteraction : require a user interaction on the
third-party site during the dialog or redirect flow.ShortRedirect redirect heuristic grants cookie access
for 15 minutes: third-party cookies are allowed for redirect
scenarios as described in heuristics-based
mitigations.LongRedirect : redirect heuristic grants cookie access
for 30 days.MainFrame: only popups initiated by the main frame can
enable the redirect heuristic. : popups initiated by any frame
can enable the redirect heuristic. |
120 | #tpcd-heuristics-grants |
--enable-features=TpcdHeuristicsGrants
--disable-features=TpcdHeuristicsGrants
For other values, set the value from chrome://flags ,
restart the browser, then copy the flag value from the Command Line section of the chrome://version page. |
Chrome flags and Chrome settings
Blocking third-party cookies from Chrome user
settings has a different effect
from the default behavior when using Chrome with the
chrome://flags#test-third-party-cookie-phaseout
flag enabled.
With only the flag enabled, third-party cookies are handled as they are for Chrome's Tracking Protection test group: third-party cookies are still allowed in short-term, limited cases to allow critical services to function, and also through the longer-term solutions of CHIPS and the Storage Access API.
If Block all third-party cookies is enabled from
chrome://settings/trackingProtection
(or Block third-party cookies from chrome://settings/cookies
, for those not
in the Tracking Protection group) Chrome does not allow any access to
third-party cookies or other unpartitioned state, unless third-party cookies are
allowed by a Chrome Enterprise CookiesAllowedForUrls
policy, or the user explicitly grants permission:
- Using the eye icon in the address bar (Omnibox).
- Adding an entry under Sites allowed to use third-party cookies on the
chrome://settings/trackingProtection
page. - Adding an entry to Allowed to use third-party cookies on
chrome://settings/cookies
.
If the
BlockThirdPartyCookies
policy is set to false
for a Chrome Enterprise user, they won't be able to
block third-party cookies from chrome://settings
.
Use flag combinations to simulate usage scenarios
Scenario | #tracking-protection-3pcd |
#third-party-cookie-deprecation-trial |
#tpcd-metadata-grants |
---|---|---|---|
1% testing, deprecation trial ignored | Enabled | Disabled | Disabled |
Grace period registration approved for domain, but no token yet supplied | Enabled | Enabled | Enabled |
Grace period active, token supplied | Enabled | Enabled | Disabled |
Grace period no longer active, token supplied | Enabled | Enabled | [No effect] |
Support
- Report third-party cookie breakage: goo.gle/report-3pc-broken
- Raise an issue in the Privacy Sandbox Developer Support repository: goo.gle/3pcd-support
Find out more
- Preserving critical user experiences: the third-party cookie phaseout deprecation trials
- Third-party cookies restricted by default for 1% of Chrome users
- What are Chrome flags?
- What are Chrome Variations?