It’s likely that your Android phone’s web browser is loaded with unnecessary website data.
Whether you use Google Chrome, Samsung Internet, or Mozilla Firefox, the web browser on your Android phone collects a lot of information from the many websites you visit on a daily basis. Your browser collects and saves a tiny bit of information each time you visit your favorite website to read articles, purchase, or perform most other functions. In certain situations, this information may be useful. It’s what keeps you signed into accounts and enables you to load websites you visit often quickly. That’s good, but your browser’s cache and cookies include a lot of unnecessary information that may potentially compromise your privacy.

Why you should regularly clear out your cookies and cache

A large portion of the content that accumulates in your cache and cookies is simply garbage. A portion of it could have come from websites you’ve just been to once. Others appear to be actively monitoring your online surfing habits in order to display ads relevant to the products or services you are purchasing or seeing. For example, I frequently see advertising for online eyewear sales after perusing a few retailers or ads from Amazon that coincidentally display the items that were most recently in my shopping basket.

This is why it’s a good idea to periodically clean your cache. It enables you to delete information from your phone that you don’t need, particularly if your phone has cookies from an unidentified data tracker. To ensure that your phone isn’t accumulating unnecessary data, clearing your cache is a slight annoyance that will need you to log back into some of your favorite websites.

Depending on the kind of phone and web browser app you’re using, the instructions vary significantly. We’ll explain how to remove this data for Mozilla’s Firefox browser, Samsung’s internet browser (typically the default on the Galaxy phone series), and Google’s Chrome browser (the default for many Android phones, such as the Google Pixel line) below. If you need to clean out a few Apple devices as well, you can also look at our separate instruction on how to clear the cache on an iPhone web browser.

Google Chrome

In the Android version of Google Chrome, you may clear your cache and cookies by clicking the More button (shown by a column of three dots) in the top right corner of the browser and then selecting Delete browsing data. You may choose a time range from the Last 15 minutes of data to All Time using the little option that appears. You can select Delete data and be finished if the choices in this short menu are enough. You may, however, pick More choices if you want more sophisticated settings.

Browsing history, cookies and site data, cached pictures and files, tabs, saved passwords, autofill form data, and site settings are among the options available in the expanded Delete browsing data menu that appears. To choose how far back you want to remove the data, you can also utilize the Time range drop-down. Once you’ve chosen what you wish to remove, press the “Delete data” button.

If Chrome determines that a certain website is “important” to you, you may be presented with an additional prompt, and you will have the opportunity to affirm before clearing. Otherwise, Chrome will clean as you said right away if you don’t get the popup.

Samsung Internet

Clearing the cache and cookie data in your Samsung Internet browser may be done in two distinct methods. Either the browser itself or the Settings app on your phone may be used to clean.

To clean while in the Samsung Internet browser app, first hit the Options icon in the bottom right corner symbolized by three horizontal lines, then Settings; scroll down to and tap Personal browsing data then tap erase browsing data to receive a selection of options to erase. You may delete any combination of your browsing history, search history, form history, cookies, site data, cached files and pictures, passwords, and autofill forms. You will be prompted to confirm your selections before deleting after selecting Delete data.

You have the most control over what you want to remove when you go through the browser app itself. Open the Settings app, press on Apps, scroll down to and hit Samsung Internet, and then select Storage and Cache to access comparable choices from your phone’s settings menu.

You have distinct choices to clear cache and clear storage on the Storage tab. While selecting Clear cache will instantly clear the cache, selecting Clear storage will display a warning that all of the application’s data, including files, settings, accounts, and databases, would be permanently erased. This “going nuclear” strategy should erase all leftover data, allowing you to restart the Samsung web browser as if it were brand-new, even though it doesn’t mention cookies.

Mozilla Firefox

The Mozilla Firefox Android app allows you to clean the cache, much like Google Chrome does. Tap the More button, which is once more represented by three vertically aligned dots, to bring up this feature. After that, choose Settings and then Delete browsing data by scrolling down.

Firefox has the most options of the three browsers we’re talking about here when it comes to the remove browsing data menu. You may remove your browsing history, any open tabs, site permissions, and even your Downloads folder. These choices accompany cookies, side data, and cached files and pictures.

You may be more particular about the kind of data you want to delete, but you can’t choose a time period like you can with Chrome.

Additionally, Firefox offers a different choice for users who would like not to retain their browser history once they have finished using the program. There is a Delete browsing data on quit option in Settings that tells Firefox to remove any combination of these settings each time you close the program. If you want to keep your browser clean and, for example, prevent unintentionally giving your browsing history to someone who could have stolen or otherwise accessed your phone, this function is helpful.