Tracking your online activity has long been a way for websites and advertisers to make money, and companies like Brave Software have been at the forefront of protecting your privacy. In a recent blog post, the company explained an upcoming feature in its fight to stop websites from tracking you.
“Forgetful Browsing” will be available in Brave desktop version 1.53 and Android version 1.54. When Forgetful Browsing is enabled, Brave will automatically log out of the websites you’ve visited and prevent them from reidentifying you the next time you log into a site or service.
In the blog post, the company explains that most browsers get “first-party reidentification” wrong by assuming you want to be remembered by every website you visit. First-party reidentification refers to how some websites collect information about users across visits using locally stored data like cookies.
However, Brave contends that you don’t really benefit from news and shopping websites remembering you and points out that current ways to prevent first-party reidentification, such as private browsing modes, browser extensions, storage clearing, and other advanced site controls, require constant vigilance and even a single misstep can lead to a website or service permanently identifying a user.
When Forgetful Browsing launches, Brave users will be able to set their shields to “Forget me when I close this site.” And when a user navigates away from a site, they’re logged out, and all cookies are cleared. Users will also be able to set exceptions for websites they want to be remembered by (things like email, social media, and often-visited sites like Amazon are good examples of services to set exceptions for).
Source: Brave
