Imagine you’re browsing around for the perfect gift for your spouse’s 40th birthday. And now, imagine that your spouse scrolls through your phone that evening only to find out all about your super-secret birthday plan from your search suggestions? What a bummer! Read on to find out why regularly clearing out your browser history is a good idea, along with steps for doing the same on your Android device.
Why Should We Clear Our Android Browser History
Web browsing history is our trail through the wide web. It saves us time when we wish to go back to a site we visited or get suggestions based on our browsing patterns. However, we may sometimes want to clear out some ‘internet footprints.’
Just as we do not want stalkers lurking around us on our way to work, we also do not want third-party websites tracking our move on the internet. Clearing out our browser history makes it more difficult for them to identify our patterns. Plus, every internet user is well aware of the debates on privacy issues concerning advertisers gathering our search data to curate advertisements. Clearing cache ensures that we access the most recent version of websites and also helps make space on our devices. Read ahead for an easy run through the steps to delete your browser history on an Android device.
Note: We’ll cover the procedure for Google Chrome since it’s the default browser on most Android devices. Internet browsers like Opera Mini, Internet Explorer, Brave, and others differ in their working and may not follow the same steps. If you are clearing your browser history because some websites are not functional, consider enabling JavaScript. To learn more about it and how to enable it in your browser, click here.
Deleting Specific Items from Browser History
If you wish to save most of your history and delete only a few items, following the steps below to clear out specific items from your Google Chrome browser history on Android:
1, Open Google Chrome on your Android device.
2, Go to the top right side and tap on the three vertical dots.
3, Select the History option, and it will lead you to a list of the sites you’ve visited.
4, Tap the X next to the sites you want to remove from your browser history. You can also search for a specific site by typing the URL in the search bar on the top right side of the History page. Close the History page and carry on!
Deleting Entire Browser History on Android
If you wish to delete all elements of your browser history, here are the steps to delete the entire browser history on Android for Google Chrome users:
1, Open Google Chrome on your Android device.
2, Go to the top right side and click on the three vertical dots.
3, A drop-down menu opens up. Tap on Settings, and then Privacy and security.
4, Click on Clear browsing data.
5, You have several options here with a time frame of deletion. You can select from the last hour, day, week, or month. Select All time if you intend to delete all of your browser history from the beginning.
6, Check the boxes you want to delete data from among the basic and advanced options. For e.g., only Browsing history, Cookies and site data, Saved passwords, or all of them.
7, Finally, tap on Clear data.
If you have signed in and synced to Chrome on various devices, note that clearing browsing data on one device will remove data from the other devices too. If you are looking to delete some more details of your browsing, clear your Google activity instead.
Final Thoughts
Deleting browser history might not guarantee 100% clearance. Following these steps might leave some information behind. Other options to browse privately are to use the Incognito mode or download applications designed to allow anonymous browsing. Happy browsing!
