The privacy-focused Brave browser introduces a new “forget browsing” feature that prevents sites from identifying you again on subsequent visits.

This new feature will not only clear cookies on sites you specify, but also data in local storage and cache when you close a website. While this also automatically logs users out of sites, it also prevents re-identification when they return to the site later.

Users can enable “forgotten browsing” in the software settings menu, either for all websites (global default) or for a specified list of sites.

“When this option is set, Brave clears the site’s proprietary storage a few seconds after there are no more open tabs for the site,” explains Brave Software. announcement.

“Forget browsing erases both explicitly stored values ​​(e.g. cookies, local storageOr indexedDB) and values ​​stored indirectly (e.g. HTTP cache or DNS cache).”

The Brave Software team explained that while its browser offers robust protections against third-party tracking, privacy issues that arise from first-party tracking remain somewhat unaddressed.

Focus on first-party follow-up

First-party tracking has taken precedence over the privacy considerations of browser engineers, as users consciously choose the websites they visit and naturally have greater control and understanding of where their data.

Although first-party cookies are important for a good website experience, such as staying logged in to a site or tracking content read, there are still several risks associated with letting a website re-identify visitors indefinitely.

These risks include creating rich user profiles for targeted advertising by aggregating more data and associating multiple visitor accounts with the same person or household, thereby breaking down privacy barriers.

Brave says most modern web browsers already offer features or tools to deal with this problem. However, they are either too fragmented, cumbersome to use, too generic or too specific, or entirely hidden from the user.

Therefore, the team decided to develop Forgetful Browsing as an integrated tool that will be easy to activate and deactivate and will not require any user vigilance or specific intervention after configuration.

To set the global default for “Forgotten Navigation”, go to Settings → Shields → Click “Forget me when I close a site.”

Website-specific situations, such as adding an entry or excluding the global default, will be as simple as navigating to the site, clicking the shields icon on the right side from the URL bar, click “Advanced Controls”, then toggle the toggle for the feature to the “on” position.

Brave clarifies that “forget browsing” will apply to sites and not domains, unlike how most settings work in Shields.

The new feature will be available on the Brave browser for desktop version 1.53 (the current stable is v1.51), while Android users will get “Forgetful Browsing” a little later, with version 1.54.