Cookie Autodelete was recently disabled, and all the alternatives I can find are blocked from installation. Wiping all my browser data every time I close the browser is not an elegant solution since so many cookie “managers” have been a part of the browser ecosystem for years. If Brave really aims to be a “privacy” focused browser, then a site cookie whitelist should be a standard feature, just like ad blocking.
Privacy is about choice, the choice to share my data with who and when I want. By removing my choice to allow certain cookies and site data to remain intact, Brave is becoming an anti-consumer browser, like Chrome.
I tried the built-in feature to remove site-data for any sites that aren’t whitelisted, but it doesn’t work, all data persists regardless of selected preferences, and it’s extremely inconvenient to locate and manage.
The big advantage of CAD was that it allowed you to clear »Local Storage« and »Service Worker« data for the current tab’s domain even while the browser session was still active. There are alternative add-ons:
A) »Cookie AutoDelete V3«, by »Vasilis Plavos«. Although it uses the same icon, this extension is not from the CAD team!
(available only in the paid version: unlimited whitelist, deletion of »local storage« and »service workers«!)
B) »Delete Cookies When Closing a Tab — Cookie AutoDelete Alternative«, by »Northpine Labs LLC«
C) »Cookie Guardian - Auto Delete Cookies on Tab Close | Privacy Cleaner«, by »Cookie Guardian«
D) »Clear Browsing Data«, by »armin.dev« (Armin Sebastian)
The question is: Which extension can you trust? I’m leaning toward D. It has the “Recommended” label from both Mozilla and the Chrome Web Store. C also has the “Recommended” label, but only in the Chrome Web Store, since this extension isn’t available for Firefox.
I ran into the same thing when Brave disabled Cookie AutoDelete, so I will share what I found. If you want CAD’s behaviour back (cookies auto-deleted when you close a tab, with a whitelist for sites you want to stay logged into), the closest like-for-like is an extension built for Manifest V3, so it will not get disabled the same way.
Disclosure up front: I am the developer of one of them, Cookie Guardian. It does the core CAD things: auto-delete on tab close, per-site whitelist, a greylist with an expiry, and it will not delete a site’s cookies if you still have it open in another tab. It works on Brave because Brave is Chromium based. It collects no data, makes no network calls, and the support code is public on GitHub. The free tier covers the essentials; there is an optional one-time upgrade for unlimited whitelist and storage/cache clearing, but you do not need it for the CAD-style workflow.
Chrome Web Store: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/cookie-guardian-auto-dele/gnoaanpbfnjakaddkecnnamnfkebhgle
GitHub: github.com/curlyethan/cookie-guardian
If you would rather not add an extension, Brave’s own Settings has a “clear cookies when you close all windows” option, but it is all-or-nothing with no per-site keep list, which is the main thing people miss from CAD.