Solved How often do you clear browser history, cookies and cache and why?

[CaffeineAddict]

Curious if you delete browsing history, cookies and cache, how often and for what reason?

Reason I'm asking is because I used to clear it every now and then but figured out it serves no real purpose other than loosing your history in case you need it.
Troubleshooting web site navigation is an exception though to clear cache or cookies.

How long is your browsing history?
Do you maybe back it up?

 

[dos2unix]

Curious if you delete browsing history, cookies and cache, how often and for what reason?

Reason I'm asking is because I used to clear it every now and then but figured out it serves no real purpose other than loosing your history in case you need it.
Troubleshooting web site navigation is an exception though to clear cache or cookies.

How long is your browsing history?
Do you maybe back it up?

I don't think I ever delete my browsing history, but I do delete cookies and cache every few months.
Probably not so much for security, but when backing up desktop systems (with browsers) tthe cache can be quite large.
Literally thousands of files.

The other thing, is some sites well, youtube especially... try to base what they show you on what you click on. I have about 4 types of videos I usually look at. Every now and then I'll for get and click on something stupid. The next time I go to youtube, I see nothing but hundreds of videos about that thing I don't care about.

If I keep searching for other things long enough, they will eventually go away, but it's easier just to delete the cookies.

 

[Fanboi]

Every time I close my browser (on my main PC, work machine doesn't count as Edge prevents the annoying 365 2FA sign-in every time I start a new session). But my main rig runs only in private/guest/incognito/etc. for all browsers. If I need to save history, I bookmark something (I really should address that -- pun intended -- as I think I have hundreds -- plural -- of bookmarks across various devices, browsers, and both physical and virtual machines, but alas, time is never one my side, and, well, brutal honesty is I'm too lazy because I let it grow and now it's a vicious cycle like my data hoarding).

TL;DR: All the time.

Edit: Oh yeah, the "Why" part:
Well part habit from my days of delusional paranoia, and part just good practice. Technically work'd kill me if they found out RE my work machine, but this is me giving a crap: ...
As for my use, yeah, it's just reducing the surface of attack and privacy invasion. SOP for me.

 

[KGIII]

Curious if you delete browsing history, cookies and cache, how often and for what reason?

Nope, not unless I have a specific reason to do so.

Yes, I'm aware that cookies can be used to track me. I'm also aware of some cookie exploits but those require a prior compromise or physical access. So, I'm not too worried.

I keep 'em for convenience.

 

[craigevil]

I keep cookies for the sites that I would need to login like forums.
Otherwise CookieAutoDelete takes care of unwanted cookies.
I have Firefox set to clear cache when I close it.

 

[treeshateorcs]

i used to be very cautious of my internet presence, i would delete my accounts on different sites all the time. nowadays i've changed my mind and i think it's counter productive. so as of the past 5-7 years i don't delete anything (part of the reason is probably because it's my life and my history, which i value now)

i wish firefox never deleted history but it still happens (after three months, i think), there's a setting in chromium for this but not in firefox

one exception to that is that i never save any caches, every page reload is downloading anew

p.s. the reason i never delete history is because i may forget about some important site that i had visited in the past

 

[909mjolnir]

i'm not wanting the wwweb to be thrashing my SSD drive, so I reassigned my entire ".cache" folder to RAM. it's working just fine; no problems with anything whatsoever. other programs that use the ".cache" also regenerate the contents too. i don't miss anything, and i regained a bit of space. supposedly, every time i shut down the computer it gets deleted. it's just wierd how fast the folders get recreated; i guess that happens on boot for some things.

 

[osprey]

Curious if you delete browsing history, cookies and cache, how often and for what reason?

Reason I'm asking is because I used to clear it every now and then but figured out it serves no real purpose other than loosing your history in case you need it.
Troubleshooting web site navigation is an exception though to clear cache or cookies.

How long is your browsing history?
Do you maybe back it up?

On my main browser, firefox, cookies are configured to delete on closing the browser. The broadband connection here is fast so new fresh cookies are gathered on a session basis, and then discarded. It's really an article of faith on my part as to the overall effectiveness in relation to security concerns. On reading about the disadvantages of keeping cookies, there are indications of more risk, so, since it makes so little difference to browser usage, deleting them on closing is set and there's never been a problem with this.

History is kept because it's useful, especially when more extensive research is being done over numerous websites.

The cache is configured to run in the /tmp directory so it is deleted on shutdown. Speedy broadband appears to have neutralised any time penalties to recreate it. On firefox, the following config is added to the about:config facility:
browser.cache.disk.parent_directory /tmp
In the past with slow online connection and more limited storage, this config was used, so in a way it's a habitual hangover from those times. I guess there's some economy in it still.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

The cache is configured to run in the /tmp directory so it is deleted on shutdown.

Now that's interesting setup, I would never come to that idea.

 

[The Duck]

On my main browser, firefox, cookies are configured to delete on closing the browser.

Exactly.

 

[Vektor]

I run PorteuX and everything is modules loaded into ram. If I want to save a website it goes into StartMe--

Personalized Start Page and Bookmark Manager | start.me

Turn the start page of your browser into a productivity hub. Manage your bookmarks with ease. Use start.me privately or in teams. Start for free!

about.start.me

and also in organized text files.

I do not keep anything else and whatever is in the "/ fs" in ram goes away on shutdown.

Vektor

 

[KGIII]

i wish firefox never deleted history but it still happens (after three months, i think), there's a setting in chromium for this but not in firefox

That's not correct.

On this system it goes back to at least October of 2023.

 

[dos2unix]

That's not correct.

Where is that menu? What version of firefox?

 

[KGIII]

Where is that menu? What version of firefox?

Version 136.0.2 (64-bit).

The menu is found at Menu > History > Manage History

I don't think I've ever changed those settings in my life as it's a tertiary browser that I use just for some banking and admin stuff.

 

[KGIII]

Additionally:

This was obviously when I installed the system and the first thing I did was head to get Chrome installed:

I have some banking information, else I'd show more of that screen. You can see that I used it a wee bit while waiting for Chrome.

Those would be the default settings - on Mint, at least. Mint could probably change that in their install if they wanted to, though they'd then need to maintain that with every version update. I'm not sure if they'd do so and I'm not sure if that's a good way to spend time.

 

[theLegionWithin]

history = never
cookies = never
browser cache = every few months, if I remember

 

[Mike-BTU]

Some sites, after you visit them a certain number of times, start behaving in an 'undesirable manner'. I usually only delete cookies from those. Depending on the site, that behavior could include:

- Limiting the number of times you can visit
- Start nagging you for contributions
- Increasing the number of other irritating behaviors, which I can't remember offhand.

On those particular websites, I delete their cookies; from the main site as well as any associated domains (usually easy to spot).

Deleting ALL cookies en masse, of course, usually comes with unwanted consequences.

 

[MikeRocor]

Curious if you delete browsing history, cookies and cache, how often and for what reason?

Reason I'm asking is because I used to clear it every now and then but figured out it serves no real purpose other than loosing your history in case you need it.
Troubleshooting web site navigation is an exception though to clear cache or cookies.

How long is your browsing history?
Do you maybe back it up?

I don't depend on my browsing history so I simply don't allow firefox to keep a browsing history.

Unfortunately, there are a bunch of files in the ~/.mozilla/ directory, some of which grow continuously over time, that I cannot readily see into. Paranoid S.O.B. that I am, I decided to make sure that there will be nothing except my bookmarks, preferences and extensions (mainly ad blockers) persisting beyond a certain point - and I define that point.

I backed up all my firefox bookmarks to a .json file then, on a clean OS, installed firefox, set my preferences, installed AdBlockPlus and a couple of other extensions, loaded up my bookmarks and STOPPED without browsing anywhere else on the web. I then made a tarball of the ~/.mozilla/ directory. Then wrote a script that does the following:

1. checks to see if firefox is running - if so, waits for it to exit
2. deletes ~/.mozilla/
3. restores ~/.mozilla/ from the "clean" tarball
4. warns if there is a ~/bookmarks*.json file that is newer than the clean tarball
5. if firefox was initially running, restarts it

If there was a newer bookmarks file (doesn't happen all that often), I manually restore bookmarks from that and then regenerate the tarball (without having browsed the web since the browser restart.

The script runs at the click of an icon and regenerating the tarball happens in the same script, with a command line flag, at a right click of the same icon.

I run this, for instance, before and after I do any on-line banking, before and after using any sites that I suspect are ad- or tracker-heavy (news sites are usually prime offenders), before and after using facebook, etc.

It takes a second or so to run, with the only prerequisite being that it won't do anything until all instances of firefox are closed ( pidof firefox comes up empty ). A tarball rebuild takes less than five seconds.

Whereas I used to occasionally find specific types of ads following me around the web after a google search, that doesn't seem to be happening any more.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

I backed up all my firefox bookmarks to a .json file

Why to json file? you can export them to HTML using UI.

 

[f33dm3bits]

I eat cookies.