Pause browsing history

Sorry for creating a similar topic 2nd time, but here I will explain what I want and why I want it more clearly. As you know the “Incognito mode” exists not only in Chrome, but also in other Google products such as YouTube, search, and maps. At the same time, Google has a setting to disable history in search and maps:


YouTube has 2 settings for disabling history, one for watch history, the other for search. And Chrome had to be consistent with these products, but unfortunately, it isn’t. It doesn’t have a setting for pausing history (unlike Firefox). I don’t know the exact reason but probably this is because of Google’s being a tracking company and “people as products” approach.

Personally, I hate having browsing history and consider it useless. If browsing history required an extension, probably I would never download it. So I used the “History on/off” extension for disabling history for a long time. But one day it started to disable my back/forward buttons, so I stopped using it. The same problem existed in chromium-based Edge, Yandex Browser, and Brave. Especially because “Brave is built with privacy in mind, it offers features Google would never allow in Chrome” I want such a setting in Brave:


Enabling this setting should not disable:

  1. Back/forward buttons.
  2. The download history and, in my opinion, “Reopen closed tab” feature, but both only until closing all non-private windows of Brave.
  3. Saving of the site data, even between different browser sessions.

Why private mode doesn’t replace this setting: First, because it is not enabled by default and I don’t know how to open it by default in macOS, second, because it doesn’t remember site data (login, passwords, settings, etc.), which is not convenient in most cases.

Why “Clear data on exit” doesn’t replace this setting: Because it doesn’t clear history before the end of a browsing session, which can sometimes last for days or weeks.

And the second change I suggest is that data which selected in “Clear data on exit” section must be cleared every time all non-private windows of Brave are closed, not only when quitting (cmd+Q in Mac) Brave.

1 Like

I to would like this feature. Browser history is distracting. I would like the options to eliminate it.

I am not having this, “Pause browsing history” option itself

yes mee too how to get that option??