Chrome, Firefox, Brave, Edge, Opera: which browser leaves the most traces?

Your browser is like a perfect butler: it remembers everything, anticipates your needs, and politely suggests the site you visited last night. Sometimes right in front of your mother-in-law.

But not all browsers save the same things, for the same length of time, and certainly not all of them let you delete a specific site as easily. We compared the five most popular: Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Brave, and Opera.

What your browser remembers (spoiler: a lot)

When you visit a site, your history is only the tip of the iceberg. Your browser also keeps:

• address bar suggestions, which pop up as soon as you type a letter;
• new tab shortcuts, those little tiles of sites you visit often;
• cookies, which keep you logged in and let ads follow you;
• the cache, images and pieces of pages stored on your drive;
• the downloads list;
• synchronization, which sends all this to your other devices connected to the same account.

To compare browsers, we looked at three things: how long they keep your history, whether you can erase a specific site without clearing everything, and what they actually delete when you do it.

Chrome: the butler who forgets nothing (for 90 days)

Chrome keeps your local history for about 90 days, then deletes it automatically (WebRankInfo). Three months is more than enough for an awkward suggestion to pop up at the wrong moment.

The real problem is targeted deletion. Chrome lets you delete pages from your history one by one, or all from the same site. But there's no button to forget a site all at once: history, cookies, and downloads are cleaned up in different menus, and the cache can't be cleared site by site.

Add in synchronization with your Google account: what you browse on your phone can show up in your living room computer’s history and suggestions. And if Web activity is enabled on your account, your searches are also recorded by Google, separate from Chrome.

In short: reasonable storage duration, but targeted deletion is awkward and your tracks can linger in many places.

Edge: Chrome’s twin, with one extra button

Edge is built on the same base as Chrome, and it shows. It also keeps your local history for about 90 days, with no way to change that (Microsoft Q&A).

Targeted deletion works the same way: search for the site in your history, select it, delete it. Cookies are managed separately, in another menu.

The little extra: an option to automatically erase certain data every time you close the browser, letting you choose which (history, cookies, cache, etc.). Handy, but it’s all or nothing: you can’t just say “erase only these sites.” And with a Microsoft account connected, your history can sync across devices, just like Chrome.

In short: same strengths and weaknesses as Chrome, with a cleanup on close that’s all or nothing.

Firefox: elephant memory, but a magic eraser

Firefox doesn’t set a retention time: it keeps history as long as its database doesn’t get too heavy. In practice, your visits can stay for months, even years. It’s the most persistent of the five.

But it has one weapon the others lack: “Forget About This Site”. In the Library (Ctrl + Shift + H), find the site, right-click, select “Forget About This Site,” and Firefox wipes the history, downloads, cookies, cache, and logins for that site at once (Mozilla Help). This is exactly the targeted erasure we dream of.

One warning: this also erases saved passwords for that site. For a “spicy” site, that’s probably not a huge deal.

In short: it keeps your tracks the longest, but it’s the only one with a real button to forget a site.

Brave: the friendly paranoid

Brave is also built on Chrome’s codebase, so its history works the same way. But it blocks trackers and ads by default, already limiting traces from third-party sites.

Its flagship feature is “Forget me when I close this site”. You activate it site by site from the lion icon in the address bar, or for all sites in the settings. A few seconds after you close the last tab for a site, Brave erases its cookies and stored data (Brave).

Watch out: this wipes cookies and site data, not your history entries. Your visit will still show in history and address bar suggestions. For that, you’ll still need manual deletion like on Chrome.

In short: the best for blocking tracking, but not a solution for hiding a visit in your history.

Opera: the Swiss army knife that lost its eraser

Opera is also based on Chrome, so its history is viewed and cleared in the same way: search, select, delete. Cookies for a particular site are deleted separately in opera://settings/siteData.

It stands out for its built-in tools: an ad blocker you can enable in settings, and a free VPN built into the browser (Opera). But beware: the VPN hides your activity from your internet provider, not from someone using your computer. Your history will still be filled up.

Since 2025, Opera also offers to automatically erase certain data on close: history, downloads, cookies, cache, and even passwords if you want (Opera blog). As with Edge, it’s all or nothing: you can’t target only specific sites.

In short: well equipped against ads and network tracking, but no better than Chrome at making a specific site disappear from your history.