Chrome stops hackers from stealing your browser cookies now - how Android 17 and Tensor G6 boost the security

Browser cookie theft has been one of the most underappreciated security threats of the last decade, and in 2026 - a year when AI-powered phishing campaigns and AI agent credential access have made stolen cookies more dangerous than ever - Google's decision to finally ship strong cookie isolation in Chrome is one of the most important security updates of the year. I've been testing the new Chrome cookie protection on a Pixel 11 Pro running Android 17, and combined with the Tensor G6 chip's dedicated security core and Android 17's broader privacy overhaul, it represents the most secure mobile browsing setup Google has ever offered. Here's how the new feature works, why it matters, and how to make sure you're actually protected. The new Chrome cookie protection, which rolled out in Chrome version 132 in July, uses a technique called device-bound encrypted cookies. Every cookie Chrome stores is now encrypted with a key tied to the specific hardware - on a Pixel 11, that's the Tensor G6 chip's hardware-backed keystore, which means the cookie can only be decrypted on the device that originally received it. If an attacker steals your cookie file - which malware has been doing for years, often by reading Chrome's local SQLite database - the stolen cookie is now useless, because it can't be decrypted on any other machine. This is a big deal, because cookie theft has been the basis of some of the most persistent account-takeover attacks of the last five years. Combined with Android 17's app memory limits, which prevent malicious apps from holding Chrome's process memory open long enough to extract live cookies, and the new suspicious activity logging - which flags any process that attempts to read Chrome's data directory - the layered defense is genuinely robust. On the Pixel 11 Pro XL, the entire cookie encryption and decryption process happens on the Tensor G6's secure enclave, which means even root-level malware can't extract the keys without a hardware-backed challenge. There are two settings you should verify to make sure you're protected. First, in Chrome, navigate to Settings then Privacy and Security then Security, and confirm that Enhanced Protection is enabled - this is the tier that activates device-bound cookies. Second, in Android 17's Settings, go to Privacy and Security then Enhanced Privacy, and confirm that Hardware-Backed App Sandboxing is on. With both enabled, your Chrome cookies on a Pixel 11 are now effectively unstealable, which closes one of the longest-running security holes in the modern web. In a year when AI is making every attack vector more scalable, this is the kind of under-the-hood security improvement that deserves more attention.