Chrome cookies: why google.com survives 'delete on close', again
If you set Chrome to delete site data when you close all windows, Chrome 152 still keeps google.com's cookies, local storage and session storage. Jeff Johnson, the Mac developer behind Lapcat Software, reproduced it on two Macs on September 5, 2026, and a Hacker News user reproduced it in open-source Chromium the same day. The same developer found the same kind of exemption for Google's sites in…
If you enable Chrome to delete site data when you close all windows, the browser retains google.com's cookies, local storage, and session storage. Jeff Johnson, a Mac developer, discovered this issue on two Macs in September 2026, while a Hacker News user confirmed it in open-source Chromium on the same day. Google had previously fixed a similar issue in 2020.
This behavior contradicts the intended function of the delete site data on close setting, which is supposed to clear all site data when the last window is closed. The only site exempted from this behavior is www.google.com. The issue persists in Chromium 152.0.7977.75 on Debian, indicating that it is part of the shared code rather than specific to Google's branded build.
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