Web storage and Chrome

 

I don`t use Chrome, mainly because I don`t trust Google not to use it for all kinds of tracking - your web browser knows absolutely everything you do on the web - what addresses you go to, what links you click on, how long you hover over a link, what you download - the list goes on and on.

So I installed Chrome on a Windows 7 machine that I rarely use for surfing on the internet.

Whilst I was looking around it, I looked at the history, which should have been empty - it wasn`t - it had imported the whole of my history from Firefox.

Without asking or telling me.

However apart from that, I did find that Chrome is reasonably open about web storage - up to a point !

If you go to 

 

     Settings / Advanced settings / Privacy

and then on 

 

     Content setings

then on 

 

     All cookies and site data...

you get a list of all the data stored on the computer - including both normal cookies, flash cookies and local storage.

It can be deleted using the "Remove all button".

 

-------------------------------

 

If you go to 


     Settings / Advanced settings / Privacy

and then on 


     Content settings

and select 

 

     Keep local data only until I quit my browser

Then it deletes the data in local storage when you close the browser - but in my case it didn`t delete Flash cookies.

 

-------------------------------

 

In Windows 7, Chrome stores the data in local storage in the folder 

 

     Windows(C:)\

        Users\

           <USERNAME>\

              Appdata\

                 Local\

                    Google\

                       Chrome\

                          User Data\

                             Default\

                                Local Storage

 

-------------------------------

 

So far I haven`t found any way that you can control how much data each domain is allowed to store, although it may exist somewhere.

I can`t find it in any of the Chrome files, although there is a file called "master-preferences" in the Chrome application directory - however although I can open it in a text editor, it isn`t human readable.

I can`t find it in the registry.

I can`t find it anywhere on the web - this is unusual - you can usually find the answers to most computing problems on the internet.

There are a few comments in forums which suggest that Chrome allocates 5 MB to each domain.

I also found a table on a Google developers website which states that there is unlimited storage - up to the amount of free space on the hard drive - that is a bit scary.

So there may be a way of doing it, maybe it is staring me in the face, but so far I can`t find it.

 

-------------------------------

 

I found a Chrome extension called Local Storage Report that gives you a list of all the local storage data on your computer - it cheerfully told me there was none - despite the fact that I could see lots of it using Chrome itself, from sites like Google, Google Chrome, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

 

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It isn`t really anything to do with local storage, but during my digging into Chrome, I couldn`t find any way to get Chrome to empty the web page cache automatically, or to set how much disk space the cache can use.

I could only find a way to empty the cache manually, inside the settings menu.

Firefox, Opera, and Internet Explorer all allow you to configure how the browser operates the web page cache.

Google Analytics uses the cache behind your back, and for all forms of tracking, the cache provides a rich source of information about where you have been on the web.

 

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Finally, before I delete Chrome from my computer - I found this list of all the places that Chrome can store data on your computer - enjoy !

And then of course, there are the other places that Google can use to extract data from your browser -

 

 

 

 

 

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