What is hackbrowserdata?

HackBrowserData is a command-line tool written in Go that extracts and decrypts data stored by web browsers on the current computer. The author states it is intended for security research only, and that users are responsible for any legal consequences from how they use it. The tool can pull multiple categories of stored data from browsers: saved passwords, cookies, bookmarks, browsing history, download history, saved credit cards, installed browser extensions, and local or session storage data. It supports Chromium-based browsers including Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, and many others, as well as Firefox, and Safari on macOS. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Once run, HackBrowserData decrypts the locally stored data and writes it to files in your chosen format: CSV, JSON, or a cookie-editor-compatible format for importing into browser extensions. You can target a specific browser or all detected browsers, pick specific data categories, and choose an output directory. For macOS Safari, the tool needs Full Disk Access to be enabled in system settings. For recent versions of Chrome and Edge on Windows, newer cookie encryption requires building the tool from source with a special additional component. Installation is straightforward: download the prebuilt binary for your platform from the releases page and run it. Building from source requires Go 1.20 or later. On Windows, extracting cookies from Chromium 127 and later requires an extra build step using the Zig toolchain to compile a payload that handles the newer encryption format those browsers use. The project is open source and written in Go. The README notes that Windows antivirus software may flag the binary as a threat because of what it does, and suggests building from source if that is a concern.