A good practice for your online security is to ditch cookies left by various websites on a regular basis. Google Chrome makes that rather easy with options that include deleting data the moment you close the browser, but a bug in the latest versions of Chrome cause data to stick around, at least for two sites.
First pointed out by an iOS developer (via the Verge), Chrome version 86.0.4240.75 which is currently rolling out to all users has a strange bug within. When deleting cookies from the browser, it retains that information for Google.com and YouTube.com. How? Instead of storing that data in the form of cookies as usual, it was instead being stored as “site data.”
This behavior wouldn’t be harmful to most users, but those who are vigilant about deleting such data could be understandably frustrated when they find that Google is still tracking them and retaining this data.
Speaking to the Register, Google confirmed that this behavior is a bug and that a fix that actually deletes data upon request is coming soon.
We are aware of a bug in Chrome that is impacting how cookies are cleared on some first-party Google websites. We are investigating the issue, and plan to roll out a fix in the coming days.
Apparently, YouTube.com has already implemented this fix, as it seems to be working as expected on even newer versions of Chrome (86.0.4240.111). However, Google.com is still keeping data. To prevent that, you can add Google.com to the Chrome browser’s “sites that can never use cookies” list.
More on Google Chrome:
- Google Chrome lets you search through your open tabs, here’s how to try it
- Chrome 86 rolling out: Password Checkup and Enhanced Safe Browsing on Android
- Google is pulling the plug on paid Chrome extensions over the next year
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