Tools

Chrome Evolution

Ryan Benson

• 4 min read
Chrome Evolution

Chrome has evolved in many aspects since its release: the browser's appearance, capabilities, and how it stores data have all changed greatly since 2008. This page lets you explore how the files and databases that make up the browsing history recorded in a Chrome profile have evolved through the versions.

If you are interested in more details about the tool and the process I used to generate the underlying Chrome data, check out this blog post.  

Below is a collapsible indented tree depicting the contents of a Chrome Profile. Each rectangle represents a file or directory and is labeled with the file name and type. Rectangles are indented to show the hierarchy. For example, every other item is indented "inside" the top-level Chrome Profile Directory. You can collapse or expand parent items by clicking on them (or use the buttons at the top to do bulk actions). SQLite databases (shown in blue) and JSON files (shown in orange) get special treatment. Since SQLite databases are so important in Chrome forensics, you can expand them to see the tables and columns inside. Likewise, you can expand the JSON files to see the objects within.

Have fun exploring! Let me know what the favorite thing you find is.

Version:

Change Log

2022-01-07: Added Chrome 97
2021-12-15: Added Chrome 96 (post Network files migration)
2021-11-16: Added Chrome 95 & 96
2021-10-13: Added Chrome 93 & 94
2021-08-13: Added Chrome 91 & 92
2021-04-20: Added Chrome 90
2021-03-16: Added Chrome 89
2021-01-31: Added Chrome 88
2020-12-11: Added expansion of JSON files
2020-11-23: Added Chrome 87
2020-10-11: Added Chrome 85 & 86
2020-07-29: Added Chrome 84
2020-05-20: Added Chrome 83 (82 was skipped)
2020-04-15: Added Chrome 81
2020-02-04: Added Chrome 78, 79, and 80
2019-09-20: Added Chrome 77
2019-07-31: Added Chrome 76
2019-06-05: Added Chrome 75
2019-05-01: Added version extraction for SNSS files
2019-04-24: Added Chrome 74
2019-03-13: Added Chrome 73 (just released) and 33 (found an old installer to fill in one I was missing).
2019-02-20: Initial release.