Brave’s unique Shred button now available for Android, letting users enhance their privacy by easily discarding tracking site data
This is the 37th post in an ongoing series describing new privacy features in Brave. This post describes work done by Vadym Struts (Senior Software Engineer) and Agustín Ruiz (DesignOps Lead), and was written by Shivan Kaul Sahib (VP, Privacy and Security).
Following the success of the Shred button on the Brave iOS browser, Brave is bringing the Shred feature to the Brave Android app. Now available with version 1.89, the Shred button on Android allows users to quickly delete site data that could be used to re-identify users across visits.
Shred lets you instantly erase any data a site stores on your device. Shred on Android offers the same easy and site-specific data erasure as Shred on iOS. This means you can instantly wipe one website’s stored data without being forcibly logged out of all websites, eliminating the need for complex site-by-site exceptions. This sets Shred apart from similar features in other privacy-focused browsers.
You can also set up Auto Shred to automatically delete site data when you close website tabs or the browser. Auto Shred replaces the existing “forget me when I close this site” feature on Android. The Shred feature unifies the user experience across Android and iOS by providing a more consistent approach to both manual (tapping the Shred button) and automatic (using Auto Shred) data clearing. If you previously used the Android forgetful-browsing feature, your preferences will be automatically migrated to the new Auto Shred settings.
The Shred button on Android, just like on iOS, is a powerful tool against the first-party tracking that might otherwise allow sites to:
- Monitor your visits and limit content access (e.g. “you have 5 articles left this month”)
- Invisibly share your data with partners (e.g. via server-side tracking)
By allowing you to clear data stored by the site, Shred disrupts this tracking. Shred can help prevent companies from building detailed user profiles or monitoring your interactions with them over extended periods.
How to use Shred
Shred data now
You can immediately Shred a site in three different ways:
- From the tab switcher
- From the contextual menu
- By selecting the new Shred option in Shields
Shred works on a per-site basis, since that is the privacy boundary for cookies and storage. When you shred a site, all tabs open to that site are closed, and locally stored data for that site is erased.
Automatically shred
Auto Shred lets you automatically delete data for specific sites, so you don’t have to remember to manually clear site data. As mentioned above, Auto Shred replaces the “forget me when I close this site” feature. Similar to the “forget me when I close this site” setting, Auto Shred has a 30 second delay after tabs close before all data is cleared for the site, to give you a chance to restore tabs.
To set up Auto Shred:
- Open Shields.
- Tap Shred site’s data.
- Tap Auto shred.
You can configure Auto Shred to happen when all tabs for a site are closed, or on browser restart. Setting Auto Shred to Site Tabs Closed means that whenever you close the last tab for a site, Brave will automatically Shred that site’s data.
You can also set Auto Shred to happen for all sites:
- Open Settings.
- Tap Brave Shields & privacy.
- Tap Auto Shred.
What data does the Shred feature delete?
Shredding deletes data explicitly stored by the site (e.g. cookies and local storage) as well as implicit data (e.g. network-related caches) available to the site. Android doesn’t have the same platform restrictions as iOS, so Brave has more control over the storage associated with a particular website. This means we can more effectively clean up all first-party storage visible to the site.
Note that your local browsing history is not available to websites, and is not currently cleared by Shred. Let us know if you would like the ability to shred local browsing history.
Privacy should be simple (and fun)
Our iOS users love the Shred button, and we’re excited to finally bring the same experience to our Android users. As always, Brave is committed to making privacy protections simple, effective, and fun for everyone. We’re also exploring new capabilities, such as shredding tab groups. Tell us how we can make Shred work even better for you!
