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Cookies 2025 chapter#4276

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tunetheweb merged 28 commits intomainfrom
cookies-2025
Jan 11, 2026
Merged

Cookies 2025 chapter#4276
tunetheweb merged 28 commits intomainfrom
cookies-2025

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@yohhaan
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@yohhaan yohhaan commented Nov 25, 2025

Hi!

This is a (draft for now) pull request with the content for the 2025 Cookies chapter (#4069). To be more efficient, the content has been drafted directly in markdown (no Google Docs). Feel free to edit on the cookies-2025 branch directly, or leave comments in your review on this PR.

Staged version: https://cookies-2025-dot-webalmanac.uk.r.appspot.com/en/2025/cookies
Staged version of home page quotes and stat: https://cookies-2025-dot-webalmanac.uk.r.appspot.com/en/2025/?feat=cookies#featured-chapter

So far, the 2025 chapter is pretty similar to last year's analysis IMO, although I have pointed out to some differences I noticed. Some suggestions or ideas if people have some time to help:

  • If you have a different perspective on things or time to dive deeper on a specific aspect, please feel free to make edits directly.
  • Idea: correlating top cookies with info from https://cookiepedia.co.uk/ for instance.
  • Idea: or investigating more these partitioned cookies from YouTube that used to be predominant, but are not anymore.
  • A suggestion from @JannisBush included adding an analysis of the issue tab in Chrome Dev Tools and/or console warnings related to cookies. This has not been performed yet and I don't know if we will have time to do so.
  • See also the {# TODO ... #} comments that I left in the sections that I felt could use more.

ToDos/Next steps:

  • @ChrisBeeti: add the SQL queries used so far for the chapter by opening another Pull Request. Also, feel free to review chapter draft and suggest/make edits.
  • @ajackley: if you manage to find some time to help with the writing and contribute, make a pass with the points above in mind.
  • @martinakraus: feel free to review chapter draft and suggest/make edits.
  • @JannisBush: feel free to review chapter draft and suggest/make edits.
  • Someone: run this npm script to generate the chapter images.
  • ask editor to make a pass
  • send for review for merge with HTTP Archive Web Almanac project

Thanks!

Fixes #4069

@yohhaan yohhaan added help wanted Extra attention is needed writing Related to wording and content 2025 chapter Tracking issue for a 2025 chapter labels Nov 25, 2025
@yohhaan yohhaan linked an issue Nov 25, 2025 that may be closed by this pull request
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@tunetheweb
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I've staged the chapter here: https://cookies-2025-dot-webalmanac.uk.r.appspot.com/en/2025/cookies
You can also see your home page quotes and stats here: https://cookies-2025-dot-webalmanac.uk.r.appspot.com/en/2025/?feat=cookies#featured-chapter

Unfortunately staging isn't automated so reach out if you want it re-staged at any time.

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@ChrisBeeti: add the SQL queries used so far to the cookies-2025 branch. Also, feel free to review chapter draft and suggest/make edits.

Let's add the SQL in a separate PR please. That way it can be merged ahead of the chapter and keeps this PR small.

@tunetheweb tunetheweb changed the title Cookies 2025 - SQL & Markdown Content Cookies 2025 chapter Nov 25, 2025
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yohhaan commented Nov 25, 2025

Thank you @tunetheweb for the edits, staged version, and comments, much appreciated!

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Overall it looks promising, but I have a lot of small questions/remarks.


The observations from this chapter confirm the conclusions from last year's analysis:
- A majority (60%) of cookies encountered on the web are third-party cookies and popular websites create them the most.
- Most popular cookies can be linked to advertising, tracking, and analytics use cases.
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  1. Maybe add that most third-party cookies come from very few sites. Not sure if we have a query for that, but probably we could make a query to show that 90% of third-party cookies belong to only 100 sites (or something similar).

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Asking @nrllh for access to BQ to perform the query

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@JannisBush I'm not sure if this is exactly what you mean. Here is a first try, but I am unsure what you mean

eTLD from Cookie Domain Occurrence
ctnsnet.com 114,320
app-us1.com 21,227
pardot.com 15,833
powr.io 12,597
tctm.co 9,571
sonobi.com 7,234
acecounter.com 6,621
easystore.co 5,899
newsroom.bi 3,854
taboola.com 3,530

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Note: if @ChrisBeeti and @JannisBush converge on something here, happy to edit/complete that statement with more. In the meantime, the conclusion was rephrased to be based on results we had in the chapter, so that chapter review and merge can move along for publication.

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@yohhaan what's the latest with this? I don't see any response to the feedback and it's still in draft status.

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yohhaan commented Jan 5, 2026

Comment from @JannisBush:

Queries missing
@ChrisBeeti seems like the queries are still missing, which would be great to have for reviewing some data that is unexpected.

@yohhaan yohhaan marked this pull request as ready for review January 6, 2026 00:35
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yohhaan commented Jan 6, 2026

@yohhaan what's the latest with this? I don't see any response to the feedback and it's still in draft status.

I had left for vacation for the holidays just after the review was posted. I have now addressed and resolved most of the comments that were about the phrasing and text details. Remaining comments are essentially about the SQL queries and figures on which I have tagged @ChrisBeeti, analyst for the chapter.

Also removing the draft mode.

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Added notes and grammar fixes

Some more general notes:

  • "javascript" -> "JavaScript"
  • HTTPs -> HTTPS

@yohhaan yohhaan removed the help wanted Extra attention is needed label Jan 8, 2026
@yohhaan yohhaan mentioned this pull request Jan 9, 2026
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yohhaan commented Jan 9, 2026

@tunetheweb: I think we are pretty much ready here for the cookies chapter to be reviewed and merged for the launch of the Web Almanac.

I have also just pinged @bsmth on the issue #4069 as they were listed as the initial editor.

Just 1 question left for @ChrisBeeti to double-check that on a figure, results were not inverted between 1st and 3rd-party cookies (if this is the case, this would not impact the interpretation nor the text of the chapter, just a figure might have to be updated).
And 1 suggestion left of an optional query to add to a statement in the conclusion (which we could also do without IMO).

Thanks!

@tunetheweb tunetheweb removed the 2025 chapter Tracking issue for a 2025 chapter label Jan 11, 2026
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Images automagically compressed by Calibre's image-actions

Compression reduced images by 25.3%, saving 109.6 KB.

Filename Before After Improvement Visual comparison
src/static/images/2025/cookies/top-third-party-CHIPS.png 42.5 KB 32.9 KB 22.6% View diff
src/static/images/2025/cookies/top-third-party-cookies-set.png 38.1 KB 28.7 KB 24.7% View diff
src/static/images/2025/cookies/top-cookie-domains.png 34.6 KB 26.2 KB 24.3% View diff
src/static/images/2025/cookies/top-first-party-CHIPS.png 36.6 KB 28.2 KB 22.9% View diff
src/static/images/2025/cookies/first-and-third-party-prevalence-by-rank-desktop.png 24.7 KB 17.3 KB 30.2% View diff
src/static/images/2025/cookies/first-and-third-party-prevalence.png-by-rank-mobile.png 24.3 KB 17.1 KB 29.9% View diff
src/static/images/2025/cookies/top-first-party-cookies-set.png 26.5 KB 19.6 KB 25.9% View diff
src/static/images/2025/cookies/cookies-attributes-overview-desktop.png 23.4 KB 16.9 KB 27.9% View diff
src/static/images/2025/cookies/cookies-attributes-overview-mobile.png 23.0 KB 16.7 KB 27.3% View diff
src/static/images/2025/cookies/cookie-prefixes-desktop.png 20.7 KB 14.8 KB 28.7% View diff
src/static/images/2025/cookies/cookie-prefixes-mobile.png 20.6 KB 14.8 KB 28.3% View diff
src/static/images/2025/cookies/first-and-third-party-prevalence.png 20.2 KB 15.0 KB 25.7% View diff
src/static/images/2025/cookies/number-cookies-cdf-desktop.png 22.4 KB 17.6 KB 21.1% View diff
src/static/images/2025/cookies/same-site-desktop.png 17.6 KB 12.9 KB 26.8% View diff
src/static/images/2025/cookies/same-site-mobile.png 17.2 KB 12.6 KB 26.9% View diff
src/static/images/2025/cookies/number-cookies-cdf-mobile.png 22.1 KB 17.6 KB 20.3% View diff
src/static/images/2025/cookies/size-cookies-cdf-desktop-mobile.png 19.6 KB 15.7 KB 19.7% View diff

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OK I did a quick edit and this LGTM now. Let's merge this and can iterate if anything changes.

@tunetheweb tunetheweb merged commit 7b9b3b3 into main Jan 11, 2026
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@tunetheweb tunetheweb deleted the cookies-2025 branch January 11, 2026 23:58
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Cookies 2025

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