Brave’s unique Shred button is now available for Android, allowing users to improve their privacy by easily discarding tracking site data

This is the 37th post in a continuous series which describes 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 Shredder button on the Brave iOS browserBrave brings 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 can be used to re-identify users across visits.

With Shred, you can instantly delete any data a site stores on your device. Shred on Android offers the same easy and site-specific data deletion as Shred on iOS. This means you can delete immediately one website’s saved data without being forcibly logged out there 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 one “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 (by tapping the Shred button) and automatic (using Auto Shred) data cleanup. If you previously used the Android forget 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 websites to:

• Monitor your visits and restrict content access (eg “you have 5 articles on this month”)
• Invisibly share your data with partners (e.g. via server-side tracking)

By allowing you to delete data stored by the website, Shred disrupts this tracking. Shred can help prevent companies from building detailed user profiles or monitoring your interactions with them over long periods of time.

How to use Shred

Shred data now

You can instantly shred a website in three different ways:

• From the tab switch
• From the contextual menu
• By choosing the new Shredder option in Shields

Shred works on a per-site basis as it is the privacy boundary for cookies and storage. When you shred a site, all tabs open for that site are closed, and locally stored data for that site is deleted.

Shred automatically

Auto Shred lets you delete data for specific sites automatically, so you don’t have to remember to delete site data manually. 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 closing tabs before deleting all data for the site, to give you a chance to recover tabs.

To set up Auto Shred:

1. Open Shields.
2. Type Shreds site’s data.
3. Type car shredder.

You can set Auto Shred to happen when all tabs for a site are closed, or when browser is restarted. Adjust Auto Shred Website tabs closed means that when 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 there sites:

1. Open Settings.
2. Type Brave Shields and privacy.
3. Type Auto shredder.

What data does the Shred feature delete?

Shredding removes data explicitly stored by the website (e.g. cookies and local storage) as well as implicit data (e.g. network-related cache) available on the website. Android doesn’t have the same platform limitations such as iOSSo Brave has more control over the storage associated with a specific website. This means we can more effectively clean up all first-party storage visible on the site.

Note that your local browsing history is not available for websites and is not currently deleted by Shred. Let us know if you want 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 protection simple, effective and fun for everyone. We are also exploring new capabilities, such as shred tab groups. Tell us how we can make Shred work even better for you!