"New" cookie settings location for editing domains with wildcards [*.] (Jan 2025)

Hello,

After much agony, I have realised that full cookie control is hidden deep in the settings. The main problem was that previous Brave versions had cookie control similar to Javascript which I had previously mentioned in a related post (below) about wildcards [*.], but somehow disappeared in recent versions.

[Site & Shield Settings - Adding website URL wildcards to allow or block cookies, JavaScript, etc. (Feb 2023)]

After getting no response to another of my posts [Cookies are getting very difficult to control] where recent versions of Brave did away with obvious cookie controls, and another similar post [Delete Individual Cookies] did not relate to editing the domains of cookies, I mostly gave up.

I thought the work around was just to add wildcard [*.] domains to third party cookies (located in Privacy & Security / Site & Shield Settings / Block Cookies). However since this defeated the purpose of allowing normal session cookies and blocking third party cookies, it seemed like allowing any random code/cookie in through the front door.

The actual “new” location of the cookie settings where wildcards [*.] can be used when editing domain names is in the “On-device Site Data” menu of the settings:

brave://settings/content/siteData
(located in Privacy & Security / Site & Shield Settings / Additional Content Settings / On-device Site Data)

Adding/editing domains (with wildcards) in the following sections can tailor the browser’s cookie response in the same way as before in previous Brave versions:

  • “Allowed to save data on your device”
  • “Always delete site data from your device when you close Brave”

Since I block all cookies and only edit certain domains to allow cookie usage without third party cookies, the above is crucial for security.

The funny thing is (or awkward thing) depending on how you think about it, is that I only found this out after switching to the Vivaldi browser where settings are a bit more obvious.

Anyway, the above is there for anyone who finds it useful. No doubt I will be using Vivaldi much more from now on instead of Brave. Its unfortunate that Brave is such a struggle sometimes especially when Chrome/Brave make changes. :man_shrugging:

Brave Version: 1.74.50
Vivaldi Version: 7.1.3570.39