Lord of Scripts™ WipeChromium

WipeChromium is a small utility written in Go (v1.22) whose purpose is doing something I need to do often: wipe out my Chromium & Firefox browser data while keeping only the important stuff such as Bookmarks, Settings, Extensions & Web Applications

Usually you have to use menu options that move from time to time or are too cumbersome to find. Additionally, people tend not to know or remember the command-line options of each browser. With this application there are a few simple options that allow you to regain greater control of your privacy and of your disk space.

Note: Like all software, you agree to use it at your OWN risk. I am NOT responsible for any data loss.

Use Cases:

• You want to free up space in your disk
• Multiple browser support
• You worry about scripts that may have remained after your browsing
• You are tired of big companies profitting from you with tracking cookies
• You want to start afresh without reinstalling everything.
• You want to protect your privacy
• You are worried about security and want to make sure any usernames/passwords are removed from your profile.
• You want erase all the history and whatever else browser-makers track!

For example, on a test run my user profile directory diminished from 126 MB to only 234 KB in size while keeping all important data.

Requirements

Go Version: >= v1.18

Installation

go get github.com/lordofscripts/wipechromium go test ./... make

But most certainly, as an end-user, you just want the actual program to clean up your browser profiles. For that, head to the

• Go to the Releases page,
• Select the latest release,
• Therein, down in the Assets section download the binary for your OS & platform (Linux/Unix, Windows, MacOS).

Once downloaded, assuming the filename is wipechromium, do:

• Linux: chmod ugo+x wipechromium
• Windows: ren wipechromium wipechromum.exe
• MacOS: chmod 755 wipechromium

Afterwards I suggest you first run the program with the -scan option.

Usage

Before continuing keep in mind that regardless of your OS, you, as a user, will run within the context of your user account, for example lordofscripts which is on /home/lordofscripts on Unix/Linux, or C:\Users\LordOfScripts\ on Microsoft Windows, or /Users/LordOfScripts on MacOS.

When you use most modern browsers,such as Chromium-based browsers, within your user account (i.e. lordofscripts), you can use the browser with different user profiles such as Profile 1, Profile Work, Profile Gaming, although most users just use their Default user profile. This software operats on these User Profiles.

Features

• At present it supports Chromium & Firefox ESR but it is designed to support extra browsers.
• It can -scan your system for browser data & cache directories.
• You can wipe out your entire cache,
• You can wipe out most of your user profile data except...,
• It keeps your precious data: Settings, Web applications, File systems, Bookmarks & Extensions.
• You can wipe the cache & data in one go, or one or the other.

Known Limitations

Although care has been taken to support file operations for Linux/Unix, MacOS and Windows, I have only tested it with Linux/Unix because that's all I have..

Useful combinations

If you think there is a malfunction of some kind, you can add the -log flag to any of the command variations mentioned below. Else it is better to keep logging off (default). But In general:

wipechromium [-browser Chromium][-log] {-scan|-cache|-profile} {-name NAME}

Notice that the -browser option takes as parameter the browser type. Currently it defaults to Chromium because it's the only one supported at the moment. As such, you can omit this option in your command-line for now.

Get Help

Gives you a comprehensive guide of all command-line options:

wipechromium -help

Scan for browsers

Scans your home directory for data and/or cache of supported browsers:

wipechromium -scan

I actually recommend that you run with this option the first time before trying anything else. If it says it detected Chromium (or other browser's) data, it will tell you. If it doesn't detect it there is no purpose in running the other commands.

Clear Profile's Cache

Let's say your gaming profile is Dart Vader and that it has grown big. Or you just want to feel more secure:

wipechromium -browser Chromium -name "Dart Vader" -cache

This command will wipe out the entire Cache for the named user profile.

Clear Profile's User Data

Let's say your daily profile is Profile X and every now and then (you should!) you like to clean it up in case there are possible malware scripts, or those pesky tracking cookies from greedy companies that want to abuse your privacy.

But wait a minute! you have bookmarks of useful websites right? maybe you installed some browser extensions, or perhaps you installed one of those Progressive Web Applications and you certainly don't want to reinstall those things. And especially PGA's have their own File System in case the Cloud is not available. You don't want to lose those! Well, I don't, and this script takes care of keeping that data intact while wiping out the rest in that profile. After all, next time you fire your browser under that profile, it will recreate them and you start afresh.)

wipechromium -browser Chromium -name "Profile X" -profile

This command will wipe out the entire Cache for the named user profile.

Clear Both User Profile Data & Cache

This option is equivalent to using both -cache and -profile together. Like this:

wipechromium -browser Chromium -name "Profile X" -cache -profile

However, since usually you would want to do both, the internal logic enables both if you don't set any; therefore, it is equivalent to this:

wipechromium -browser Chromium -name "Profile X"

which will clean up both the profile data and the profile cache in one run.

Problems?

• As stated, after installation it is advised to use the -scan option.
• If scans says all is good but you still doubt, run it with the -dry option, it will tell you what it would have DELETED without actually doing it!
• Error? Well, run it with the -log option and open a discussion.

Other Credits

Gopher's shield illustration by dekob2 from Ouch! Illustrations.

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All Rights Reserved LordOfScripts™