Chrome 152 again spares Google site data from the browser's delete-on-close setting

A bug that lets Google's own website keep data on a user's machine has reappeared in Chrome, six years after a similar issue was reported and eventually fixed. The finding was published on the Lapcat Software blog, which also documented the earlier case.

What the test showed

The report describes Chrome version 152.0.7977.83 on macOS, reproduced on two different Macs. In chrome://settings/content/siteData, the default behaviour is set to delete data sites have saved to the device when all windows are closed. Visiting chrome://settings/content/all initially showed no saved site data at all: total storage used by sites was 0 B.

The tester then ran a single Google search, closed the only open Chrome window and returned to the storage page. This time google.com data was present, reported at roughly 1,216 KB, and it survived quitting and relaunching the browser. Deleting the Google data and repeating the sequence produced the same result.

Scope and workarounds

To rule out a link with search settings, the default search engine was switched from Google to DuckDuckGo; the behaviour did not change. The user was not signed into Chrome and had Chrome sign-in disabled, so account sync cannot explain the persistence. As far as the tester could determine, www.google.com is the only site Chrome exempts. Inspecting the profile folder showed that the retained data consisted of cookies, local storage and session storage.

An old pattern, and a familiar complaint

In 2020 the same blog published "Chrome exempts Google sites from user site data settings". That post drew coverage from The Register, The Verge and Gizmodo, and Google did fix the bug after the report.

The author says he does not know when the current issue was introduced, since Safari is his default browser, though he uses Chrome and Firefox frequently for testing. He writes that he is inclined to cite Hanlon's razor rather than engage in conspiracy theories, but argues Google has no excuse for incompetence either: better quality assurance, perhaps unit tests for this feature, and moving slower without breaking things.

He also notes that while signed out, Google Search results now appear as opaque google.com/goto?url= links instead of plain site addresses.