What it is good for
A HAR file records every request a browser made during a session, with headers, timings and often bodies. For consent work it answers the questions a scheduled scan cannot: what happened on a page behind a login, in a specific checkout state, on a device where a customer reported something odd.
In StrongPrivacy a capture is imported into an investigation, findings are recorded against it, and captures can be compared to show what changed between two points in time.
Handle it carefully
A HAR can contain session cookies and tokens
It is a full record of a browsing session, which means authentication cookies, bearer tokens and form contents can be inside it. Capture in a clean profile where possible, and treat the file as sensitive. The help guidance on support requests makes the same point about screenshots.
Common questions
How do I capture a HAR file?
Open developer tools, go to the network panel, enable preserve log, reload the page and perform the steps you want recorded, then export as HAR. Do it in a fresh profile with no extensions if you want a representative first-visit trace.
When is a capture better than a scan?
When the state matters. Authenticated pages, a specific checkout step, a regional variant, or a one-off report from a customer are all cases where an automated crawl will not reproduce the conditions.
Sources and verification
Verified on . Product-behaviour statements were checked against the current implementation and tests. The links below are the verification basis recorded for this article. They support the stated facts, not a legal conclusion for every site or configuration; recheck changing vendor behaviour before relying on it in production.
- Chrome DevTools: save network activity as a HAR file
Official documentation
Checked
- StrongPrivacy verification guide
Product documentation
Checked
See what your own site is loading
A browser scan reports the requests and storage it observed during the sampled journey. Use configured workspace scans to compare the states and pages that matter to your implementation.