How to Block or Delete Cookies in Google Chrome?

Different websites offer different functionalities. Some are plain static websites with content and many are with dynamic content having advertisements and tracking codes. Websites need to handle certain data at client side on your browser to speed up the user experience. Though there are many ways website owners can handle this, cookies are the easiest way for this. In this article we will discuss what is the purpose of cookies, how to block and delete in Google Chrome browser.

Related: How to clear browsing history in browsers?

Purpose of Cookies

Cookie is a data sent from a website and stored on your browser. It can do many functions depending upon the purpose.

• Storing user login details to retain you on the browser even you close the tabs.
• Track user activities to count website visitor statistics.
• Track your clicks and searches to serve interested based advertisements.
• Remember the number of items stored in a shopping cart.

Essentially all modern websites use cookies to achieve one of the above objectives. There are two types of cookies a website can use.

• Own or first party cookies – these are the cookies generated by the website itself. For example, cookie that stores your login information.
• Third party cookies – these are the cookies generated by other websites however used on the website you visit on Chrome. For example, Google Analytics tracking code on a website will use third party cookie from Google on the website URL.

Why to Delete Cookies?

Clearing cookies can solve number of issues like slow page loading, resolving host or page format issues.

There are many situations you may see the webpages are loading slowly on Chrome. One of the major reasons for this is the corrupted cookies. Hence, deleting cookie data on your browser history may help improving the loading speed of websites.

Also Chrome will store cookie, whenever you click on affiliate links. Generally, these affiliate cookies may stay on the browser for 90 to 120 days depending on the validity. You can get rid of these affiliate cookies by deleting them on periodic interval.

Caution Before Deleting

As mentioned, cookies will store login information of a website. So ensure to save all your content and logout of websites before you try to clean up cookies. Otherwise your session will get terminated and you may need to login again. You may loose the content, if you are doing something online.

How to Delete Cookies in Google Chrome?

Below, we have discussed various ways through which you can clear these cookies in Google Chrome. In Chrome browser you can easily delete cookies from “Chrome Settings” or from the “History page”.

1. From “Settings” Page

• Open Google Chrome on your desktop and click the menu icon on the top-right corner of the browser window. This will display a drop-down menu.
• Click the “Settings” option near the bottom of the menu list to open the setting page.

• Alternatively, you can type “chrome://settings” at the Chrome address bar and hit the “Enter” key on your keyboard. This will open the “Settings” page.
• Scroll down and click on “Advanced” at the bottom of the page.

• Under “Privacy and Security” select the “Clear browsing data” option. A new window will pop up.
• Set “Time range” to “All time” and tick the “Cookies and other site data” checkbox. Then click the “Clear data” button near the right bottom corner of the pop-up window.

2. From More Tools Menu

Launch the Chrome browser and click the menu icon. Hoover the mouse cursor over “More Tools” and select “Clear browsing data…”.

• Another option would be the keyboard shortcut “Ctrl + Shift + Delete” keys in Windows or “Command + Shift + Delete” keys in Mac when you are in Chrome. This will open the “Clear browsing data” dialog box directly.
• Check the “Cookies and other site data” box and click the “Clear data” button to delete the cookies.

3. From History Menu

• Open Chrome on your computer and click on the menu icon to access the menu options.
• Hover the mouse over “History” and on the extended left pane, select “History”. 
• You can also open the history page using the keyboard shortcut by pressing “Ctrl + H” on Windows or “Command + H” on Mac while on the Chrome browser.
• On the left pane of the history page, click on “Clear browsing data”.

• This will open a new tab and open the “Clear browsing data” window. Ensure that the box on the left of “Cookies and other site data” is ticked. Then click the “Clear data” button at the bottom of the window to clear the Chrome cookies.

How to Block Cookies in Google Chrome?

All the above methods will completely delete cookies already stored on Chrome. They will not stop the websites to again save the cookie on your browser. You can block cookies at browser level or specific website level in Google Chrome. Remember, blocking cookies will result in unexpected behavior of the website. You can always clear the cookies as explained above, only block if you know what you are doing.

Related: How to block pop-ups in Google Chrome?

1. Block Cookies at Browser Level

• Open Chrome and go to the command URL “chrome://settings/content/cookies”.

• Click on the “See all cookies and site data” option to view all cookies available on your Chrome browser. You can also view the cookies stored by each website in detail and delete then individually.

• Turn off “Allow sites to save and read cookie data (recommended)” option to block cookies in Chrome.
• You can also only block third party cookies by turning off the option “Block third-party cookies”.

2. Block Cookies at Site Level

If you don’t want any specific site to use cookies on your browser then click “Add” button against “Block” option. Enter the domain name to completely block cookies from any sites from the domain including subdomains.

You can also block all sites and allow specific sites for allowing cookies. The other option is to use “Clear on exit” so that Chrome will delete cookies for the added site when you exit the browser.

If you feel difficulties in blocking cookies by adding website, simply open the site you want to block cookies in Chrome. Click on the padlock icon on the address bar and choose “Cookies” option.

You can view all cookies that the website uses and block individual domains from the site. You can also select individual cookies from any of the listed domain and remove it for that session.

Wrapping Up

While cookies are meant to improve your browsing experience, they can affect the correct loading or format of a site page. You can follow the above methods to clear cookies when using the Google Chrome. Also when you feel annoyed with advertisements from specific website you can block related cookies for that website in site specific settings.