Browser Support Reference

This is the canonical browser matrix for the CLI --browser selector. It describes the current source-level support contract; it is not a live compatibility certification for every browser release.

CLI browser selectors

Selector	Browser family	macOS	Linux	Windows	Notes
chrome	Chromium	✅	✅	✅	Uses Chrome's platform data directory.
chromium	Chromium	✅	✅	✅	Uses the Chromium data directory and Safe Storage entry.
whale	Chromium	✅	✅	✅	Uses Naver Whale's data directory and Safe Storage entry.
edge	Chromium	✅	✅	✅	Uses Microsoft Edge's platform data directory.
arc	Chromium	✅	—	⚠️	Windows query paths exist, but availability detection still marks Arc unavailable; verify locally before relying on it.
brave	Chromium	✅	✅	✅	Uses Brave's platform data directory.
opera	Chromium	✅	✅	✅	Uses Opera's platform data directory.
opera-gx	Chromium	✅	✅	✅	Uses Opera GX's platform data directory.
vivaldi	Chromium	✅	✅	✅	Uses Vivaldi's platform data directory.
firefox	Firefox	✅	✅	✅	Covers regular Firefox plus discovered variant profile roots.
safari	Safari	✅	—	—	Safari is skipped outside macOS.

• ✅ implemented platform path and strategy
• ⚠️ selector exists, but current source has conflicting platform assumptions
• — unavailable or intentionally skipped

When --browser is omitted, the CLI creates a composite strategy containing all eleven selectors above. An invalid browser value also falls back to that composite strategy, so use --verbose if a selector appears to be ignored.

Library API boundary

The root getCookie() and batchGetCookies() helpers query Chrome, Firefox, and Safari by default. They do not accept a browser option. For a specific CLI selector in code, construct a browser strategy directly:

import {
  ChromiumCookieQueryStrategy,
  FirefoxCookieQueryStrategy,
} from "@mherod/get-cookie";

const edge = new ChromiumCookieQueryStrategy("edge", "Work");
const firefox = new FirefoxCookieQueryStrategy("default-release");

chromium and whale work with --browser, --list-profiles, the public strategy factory, and MCP browser selection.

Profiles and containers

• Chromium selectors discover profiles from Local State and match --profile case-insensitively against either the display name or directory name.
• Firefox discovers profiles from profiles.ini; --profile matches the profile Name case-insensitively.
• --container applies only to Firefox and accepts a container name, numeric user-context ID, or none.
• Safari has one cookie store and does not support named profile filtering.
• Without --browser, --profile is passed to each supported browser and --container filters Firefox's portion of the results.

Firefox variants

Firefox Developer Edition and Firefox ESR are not separate CLI selectors. The firefox strategy discovers their profile roots on Windows alongside regular Firefox. On Linux it checks native, XDG, Snap, and Flatpak profile roots.

For storage and encryption details, see Browser-Specific Details. For operating-system requirements, see Platform Support.