Internet browsers have become essential programs in the vast majority of today’s computers. These are in charge of providing us with everything we need so that we can move online through the countless pages and platforms that we visit every day. Here we refer to programs of the importance of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox or Microsoft‘s Edge, among many others.
In fact, these types of programs today are among the first that we install on our current computers. Let’s not forget that Edge is the one that comes by default with Windows 10 itself , but most users opt for other third-party solutions to use daily. What’s more, we can say that right now and for a long time, Google’s alternative is the most used proposal in this sense, and by far.
To give us an idea of what we are telling you, say that Chrome is used by around 70% of users globally today, which is no small thing. Behind it already has other proposals such as Firefox or Edge , but still very far from these numbers. That is why in these lines we want to focus precisely on this program of the search giant. Specifically, we are going to talk about the data that it stores in an automated way, something that we can solve whenever we want, as we will see.
As you probably already know first-hand, the programs we refer to here are used to access online platforms, applications and websites . For this, it presents us with a series of functions and characteristics that will be very helpful in this regard.
Types of data that Chrome saves from browsing
It is also worth mentioning that its developers not only take care of the functional aspect of these programs, but also the aesthetic and security aspects. For example, Google Chrome itself offers us a good number of parameters to customize the program’s interface.
The same happens with the functional section of the application and, of course, with everything related to both privacy and security . These last two are in fact one of the most important sections of any program of this type. And it is that in the first instance it must try to protect us from certain more or less malicious elements that we encounter on the Internet. Also, the program itself saves a series of data with which it is intended to improve the user experience , something with which not everyone agrees.
Keep in mind that the developers of these applications strive to offer as much as possible to their millions of users . For this and based on updates, browsers are full of features at our disposal, a number that does not stop growing. But as we say, in order to improve the user experience, they store a good amount of their own data.
How to erase the data that Chrome saves for greater security
Generally, these information that we are talking about, actually refer to both the relative data of the users themselves, and the websites we visit. Due to all this, many consider this to be a clear violation of their privacy.
But this is something that we can change if we wish, it is enough to modify Chrome’s default configuration in this regard, or erase this data periodically. Due to all this that we tell you, most modern browsers come with functions that allow us to delete stored data easily. Here we refer to items such as browsing history, cache images, saved passwords, etc. This is something that to begin with we will achieve from the menu that is in the upper right corner of the main interface of the program.
From this menu to which we refer, it is from where you can customize a good part of the Google browser settings. Specifically, what we have to do for all this is to display the menu of the mentioned button, and go to the Settings option.
Privacy and security in Chrome
In the left part of the new window with which we are going to find, we will see a series of categories that are those that correspond to the options that we can change. If we take into account that in this specific case we are talking about the privacy of the program, we place ourselves in the so-called Privacy and security . Thus, in this section, we find a section that contains a section called Clear browsing data. This is the one that interests us in this case, so we have more to click on it.
At that time a new window will open with a series of very useful options for this that we are looking for at the moment. In the list we see, a set of independently placed data types appear. This really allows us to mark them, or not, for later cleaning. Therefore here we no longer have to choose what we want to erase depending on the needs of each case.
It is worth mentioning that, as we mentioned before, here we find the files and images of the cache, the browsing and download history, the stored passwords, application data, etc. And that’s not all, since it also allows us to erase everything that we have previously marked, but during a specific period of time. This is something that we can carry out from the top list that we see in this same window. So we can choose the data saved in the last hour, the last day, week or month , or forever.
In this way we will have much more control over the deletion process that we are talking about in these lines. Therefore, to finish with what we are looking for, we only have to click on the Delete data button that we see at the bottom of the window .
Clear browsing data with a keyboard shortcut
As we mentioned before, little by little the browsers are adapting to the needs of the users. Thus, for security and privacy reasons, as we mentioned, many try to make cookies temporary files, or the cache is not temporarily stored. Thus, before we show you the way you have to clean all this in a controlled and personalized way.
Of course, as we have seen, for this we have to move in a mandatory way through the program menus. But in a more direct way, we can do the same cleaning we are talking about, as we are going to teach you. For all this we can use a special keyboard shortcut for Chrome. It is true that these shortcuts have long allowed us to carry out a multitude of tasks in the program itself. However, what we want to tell you now is that in the same way we have another keyboard shortcut that will allow us to directly open the panel to delete the navigation data.
Thus we save ourselves from having to move through the program menus, for which all we have to do is press the key combination Ctrl + Shift + Del . In this way we can go directly to the configuration section from where we can erase our data stored by the program.