BleachBit, the open source system cleaner often mentioned as an alternative to CCleaner, reaches version 6.0.0 with what the team calls the most significant release in years: over one hundred improvements, new features, and substantially deeper browser cleaning.

Cookie Manager

The most anticipated addition is the integrated cookie manager. Previously, BleachBit wiped browser cookies indiscriminately. Now you can choose which cookies to keep and which to delete, across Chromium-based browsers, Firefox, and its variants.

Deeper Browser Cleaning

Cleaning Chrome and other Chromium browsers becomes far more thorough. The tool now removes component caches, extension caches, shader cache, crash reports, IndexedDB data, network state, and search suggestions. For Firefox, LibreWolf, and Waterfox, it adds storage data, permissions, session backups, and site security status.

This version also brings cleaning profiles for Vivaldi and Zen, two browsers with growing user bases. Opera receives substantial improvements as well.

Expert Mode and Interface Improvements

BleachBit 6.0.0 introduces an expert mode that adds guides to protect less experienced users from risky operations. In practice, advanced options like browser password deletion show a warning icon and require explicitly enabling expert mode to use. Users coming from versions before 5.1.0 may need to enable it to access all the features they’re accustomed to.

Among other interface improvements: you can now remember choices in confirmation dialogs to avoid repetition, paste file paths with Ctrl+V in the main window to initiate secure deletion, and see information bars instead of modal dialog boxes.

Linux and Windows Updates

On Linux, cleaning now works for Chromium and ungoogled Chromium installed via Flatpak, and for SSD installations it automatically calls fstrim for more effective cleanup. Both .deb and .rpm packages are now signed directly by the maintainer.

On Windows, improvements come to cookie cleaning for Chromium, Brave, and Edge, the installer is now available in multiple languages, and an important bug that could cause unintended data loss when following junctions and symlinks in the Recycle Bin has been fixed.

BleachBit 6.0.0 is available for free download from the official site for Windows and Linux.