How to see if your cookies are being extended correctly

Once Cookie Saver has been implemented on your website, you can check if the lifespan of your cookies has been extended correctly.

This guide explains how to evaluate your Cookie Saver setup by checking the lifespan of your cookies.

By default, Cookies Saver runs only on Safari, so you will need a Safari browser to perform this check. 

After Cookie Saver is implemented, it may look like cookies like the Facebook cookies (_fbp, _fbc) does not get extended and still expires after 1-7 days. 

However, this is intentional.

Certain marketing and analytics vendors keep updating their cookies for every tracking request that's made. Normally this is a good thing, however, with ITP in place, every time the cookies are updated client-side (JavaScript) they are are capped to 1-7 days expiration. 

As we don't want to impose unnecessary load on the client by extending cookies every time their expiration is updated, we instead keep a backup of the cookie values. Cookie Saver backup cookies use the prefix "_acs" and are always lasting 2 years. 

In the case that Facebook updated its own cookies (now capped to 1-7 days expiration) just before the user leaves the website, Cookies Saver will not have extended the updated cookies to e.g. 90 days expiration. However, as the cookies are kept in the backup cookie, Cookie Saver ensures that the Facebook cookies are re-created after the 1-7 days expiration if they were deleted due to ITP. 

This is all thanks to the Cookie Saver Preload Script.

You can always validate that it's working as intended by:

1. Take note of the cookie value for the specific cookie (e.g. the Facebook cookie _fbp)

2. Delete that specific cookie

3. Refresh the cookie window or reload the page

4. Observe that the cookie is re-created with the same value as before