Every time you browse the Internet from your phone (or any other device) you store a large amount of information on your mobile with which they can identify you (cookies) and that helps you save time the next time you load the pages (cache). Both of them accumulate without there being a periodic cleaning program.. Therefore, it is convenient to keep the browser up to date and know how to do it.
Privacy is one of the areas that currently arouses the most concern, especially in the field of smartphones. The threat of malware is notorious, tools like Pegasus revealed the enormous danger that lurks in our mobile use. And there is an element that, without being dangerous as standard, does carries significant privacy risks: the web browser. Use a trusted one and keep it up to date. For what it could happen.
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The browser can accumulate significant cache space
Both cookies and cache belong to all the information that the web browser accumulates to facilitate user navigation. These two tools are not dangerous in themselves, but they can be risky since the pages can access a large part of the data they store. With this information, a website would know what other pages we visit; what is used for create a pattern of tastes and personality much more complete than it seems.
The privacy risk is one of the aspects that we must take into account when cleaning an Android from cookies: by carrying out this process on a regular basis we will ensure that the pages do not have access to navigation data, visits and other information that serves to track the user. Eliminating cookies eliminates a large part of these risks, always at a price: every time we visit the pages we will have to start the session again, the carts will not have saved the products in the basket and other useful aids that will disappear during navigation. .
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Cookies do not take up too much storage space, quite the opposite of the cache: browsers such as Google Chrome, Samsung, Brave or Firefox can accumulate GB of downloaded space. In principle, it is information that is saved so as not to have to download it again (photos, videos, documents…); data that you may never need again and that will remain in cache until you clean it.
The two great advantages of clearing the cache and cookies are:
- greater privacy. The phone does not save the information of the websites that the user accessed, so they cannot track him.
- More space available. Doing cleaning releases a considerable amount of information that, in most cases, the user does not need.
- Allows you to restore a specific view. There are websites that save a cookie on the phone to tell the browser how to load the page next time. Deleting said cookie restores the default view of the page.
As is often the case, deleting cache and cookies has its downsides. These are:
- Anything saved to the pages is lost. Shopping carts, language selections, logins, web colors… All these options are stored in a personalized way in the form of cookies.
- More spending on data and time when reloading websites. If the cache is cleared it is essential to load images, videos and HTML again; so mobile data will be spent if the page has already been visited. Offline access is also lost.
There are browsers that include self-cleaning functions for cookies, including cache: it is worth activating them if privacy is one of the elements that most concerns you. Besides, browsing incognito will prevent cookies from remaining in the browser, also most of the cache (or all).
How to clear the cache of your web browser
It doesn’t matter what application you use to navigate, since the way to delete the cache is generic in Android:
- Go to your phone’s settings and enter the “Applications” section.
- Find the browser you use regularly. Google Chrome, Brave, Opera, Firefox…
- Go into the “Storage and cache” options.
- You will see the amount of temporary information that your browser has stored. To delete said data, click on the “Clear cache” icon.
- Clearing the cache has no appreciable effect on your browsing: You will simply download the information again if you navigate to a previously visited page.
How to delete cookies from your browser
While clearing the cache is the same for any Android app, clearing cookies varies by web browser (although it’s pretty similar between all of them). The process should be as follows:
- Open your browser and go to settings.
- Go into the privacy and security settings. The exact name varies from browser to browser.
- Go to “Clear browsing data”.
- Select the deletion of cookies and site data and proceed to its elimination.
- Remember: deleting cookies will prevent your browser from remembering your preferences on websites you have already visited.
