How To Change Your Privacy Settings for a Safer Online Experience

Your personal information is like financial currency, and everyone is after it. We'll teach you all of our tips to use your privacy settings to your advantage. 

Read on to learn what privacy settings you may want to change to limit accessibility and how you can do it.

How to change Google privacy settings

If you aren’t familiar with the privacy settings you can change in your Google account, you may be surprised to learn what gets saved. Fortunately, in most cases, you can control how much data you allow Google to track.

You can update your settings to stop tracking web searches and app activity, and you can delete your search history. You can also delete cookies in your Chrome web browser, which may fix formatting or page loading issues.

Another setting that you may forget to adjust is your location history. When this setting is left turned on, anywhere you travel with your device can get shared with Google.

If you want to change your Google privacy settings and delete any saved data, you can do so by following some simple steps.

How to change what data Google saves

If you’re suddenly thinking about all the searches you’ve made in the past few days, you may not want Google saving the information. Our internet use should be as safe and private as our homes.

Maybe you don't want Google saving your YouTube history. Would you be okay with your voice activity and location getting saved by Google? How about personalized ads from your recent web browsing? If none of these sound like pieces of data you want to share, you can make some updates to delete that data.

You can use the Google Activity Controls and the Google Data & Privacy center for these updates.

1. Go to the Google Activity Controls page.
2. Make sure the boxes next to Include voice and audio activity and Include Chrome history and activity from sites, apps, and devices that use Google services are unchecked.
3. Scroll down to YouTube History. You can stop sharing your YouTube history by clicking on the Turn off button.
4. Under the YouTube Subsettings, you can also uncheck the boxes for Include the YouTube videos you watch and Include your searches on YouTube.
5. On this same page, you can also click the Turn off Location history button and Web & App Activity button. Be sure to check your Ad personalization settings as well (this opens a new page).
6. Now go to the Google Data & Privacy page.
7. Scroll through the settings and click Pause on anything you don’t want Google to track.

Double-check all your settings As a recommendation, you may want to turn off all tracking settings and pause all privacy options for optimal security. If you don't want your data tracked, going through all these settings is the best way to prevent it.

How to find and delete your saved Google activity

When you want to make adjustments to your activity data settings, you can make changes any time by going to the Google Activity Controls or Data & Privacy settings. Here, you can set your data up to auto-delete if you don’t want to worry about checking your history often or just want to simplify the process.

You can see what activity data Google saves and what you want to turn off with a few simple steps.

1. Go to your Google Activity Controls page. This page displays how Google is automatically set to save your browsing data, app activity, location, and more.
2. Check the bottom of each section to see all the activity Google saved and delete it.
3. Review the selections in each section and decide if you want any of the settings changed.
4. Go to the Google Data & Privacy center. Here you’ll see a list of settings that displays what you have paused and settings that are still active.
5. Remember to check each section carefully and pause anything you don’t want tracked.

How to change your privacy settings on Android

If you use an Android device, you should find the same Google privacy options above. Depending on the make and model of your device, you may have additional privacy settings and permissions to configure.

For example, with a Samsung Galaxy S10, you can update the following privacy settings:

• Customization Service: Personalizes ads based on your interests, location, and app usage data.
• Send diagnostic data: Sends information about bugs or errors you experience while using your device. (You'll need to uncheck the two options under this setting to disable it.)

• Android personalization service: Customizes content based on your app usage.
• Android System Intelligence: Device learning that makes suggestions based on the people, apps, and content you interact with.
• Autofill service from Google: Automatically fills in online forms with your information, such as name, address, and credit card number.

Other privacy and security settings on your Android device may include ad settings, browsing history and Google search, and location history.

How to change your Microsoft privacy settings

If you use Microsoft products, you can update your privacy settings to turn off data collection.

You may want to adjust your speech recognition data tracking as well. Microsoft’s speech features listen to your voice input to collect voice data, which includes details about your voice. And when the Windows Voice activation setting is on, your device listens for certain keywords. If the device hears the keyword, it will continue to listen for your voice.

You can also update your app activity regarding which applications get launched and how often they are accessed. The software you use can get tracked, and some users would prefer that, for their privacy, Microsoft not have that data.

Your online browsing behavior in Microsoft Edge can get tracked with cookies. Since there are privacy issues with cookies, you should update those settings, too.

Changing your Microsoft privacy settings is a breeze if you know the correct steps to follow.

How to change your Windows 10 privacy settings

Microsoft saves your data and uses it to give you a more personalized experience. It also uses your data for marketing purposes and to show you ads for things you might like based on your saved history. If you’re not interested in that experience, you can update your preferences to change what data Microsoft saves.

1. Go to your Settings by clicking on the Start menu.

2. Click on Privacy.

3. You'll see a page with links to various privacy settings.

4. You can choose which privacy settings you want to adjust. We recommend clearing your Activity history and Location data. You'll also be able to update all of the settings we mentioned above under the Privacy option, like speech and advertising data.

How to change your Windows 11 privacy settings

You can alter the information you share with Microsoft in Windows 11 just like you can with Windows 10. The steps are very similar, and you will be able to update your privacy settings as you wish.

1. Go to your Start menu button. If you have not moved the button back to the original left corner (as some of us have done), it will be close to the bottom center of your screen.
2. Navigate to Settings and choose Privacy & security. You may need to click the Settings cog wheel to open your System settings, then click the hamburger menu in the top-left corner to find the Privacy & security settings.
3. As with Windows 10, you will see a list of privacy options you can update to reflect what you want Microsoft to save and track.

How to change your iOS and macOS privacy settings

Apple collects your personal information depending on how you interact with their products. That could be connecting to their services like the App Store or contacting customer support for help with your device. 

Your personal information and payment selection are data that can get tracked and saved. Sometimes even your social media interactions may get tracked.

How to disable ad tracking on iOS and macOS

If you decide that you don’t want Apple tracking your ad history, you can disable this setting on your iPhone or Macbook with a few easy steps.

1. Go to your System Preferences under the Apple logo at the top of your Mac device.

2. Click Security & Privacy, then choose the Privacy tab.

3. Make sure Apple Advertising is highlighted on the left of the screen.

4. Remove the checkmark for Personalized Ads.

For your iOS device, the steps are similar.

1. Go to the Settings app on your iPhone. Find and choose the Screen Time tab.
2. Select the Content & Privacy Restrictions option.
3. Toggle on Content & Privacy Restrictions and block the ad tracking on your iPhone.

How to turn off data sharing for Apple analytics

Sometimes Apple will ask you to share information from your devices for analytics purposes.

That data can include information regarding your operating system, performance, and hardware specs. Although none of the data collected identifies you personally, if you don’t want to share that information, you can turn it off on your Apple device.

1. On your iPhone, go to the Settings menu.
2. From there, navigate to Privacy, then Analytics & Improvements. Here you can turn off Share iPhone Analytics.

On your Macbook, you can also turn off data sharing.

1. Go to the Apple logo and choose System Preferences.

2. Select the Security & Privacy option.

3. From there, you will see the Security & Privacy menu. If you see a lock at the bottom left of the screen, click it to make any changes.

4. Go to Analytics & Improvements and deselect Share Mac Analytics and Share with App Developers. 

How to turn off Siri

If you have an iPhone, you may have used Siri to make life a little simpler by voicing commands or asking Siri for instructions to a destination.

Many people enjoy the convenience of using Siri’s functionality, but some people don’t want Siri turned on because they don’t find it useful. 

When you ask Siri a question, you may not get an answer, or you might get an answer about how Siri found an article on the web for you. And if you use Siri for voice-activated texting you still need to check for typos because it can end up making no sense at all.

If you would like to disable Siri, it only takes a few steps.

1. Go to Settings on your iPhone.
2. Go to Siri & Search.
3. Make sure the Listen for 'Hey Siri button is swiped to the left. 
4. Turn off the Press Side Button for Siri option.

If you’ve used Siri and you want to delete the history, you can access that from the same Settings menu option.

On iPhone:

1. From Siri & Search, go to Siri & Dictation History.
2. Click on Delete Siri & Dictation History.

On Macbook:

1. From your Macbook, go to the Apple logo and choose System Preferences.
2. Select Siri, then Delete Siri & Dictation History.

Online safety tools

If you’ve adjusted all of your privacy settings and want some additional ways to protect your information online, you can use ad blockers, VPNs, or data removal services to protect yourself.

• Incogni: Incogni works to remove your personal data from brokerage sites, which helps prevent fraud, targeting, and spam. If you get a lot of robocalls or want better protection from scams, Incogni’s personal data removal service can make it harder for scammers to contact you.

  Get Incogni | Read Our Incogni Review

• DeleteMe: DeleteMe scans data-sharing sites for your information and helps remove your personal details. DeleteMe also offers masking tools, which hide info like your phone number and credit card number so they can’t be snagged by data brokers.

  Get DeleteMe | Read Our DeleteMe Review

• NordVPN: Most of us use public Wi-Fi these days, but it’s a security risk to use an unprotected network. NordVPN encrypts your web browsing so that advertisers and trackers can’t access it undetected.

  Get NordVPN | Read Our NordVPN Review

• Total AdBlock: Ads are always annoying, but they’re even worse when they’re actively targeting you. Total AdBlock removes ads online so you can view web pages uninterrupted.

  Get Total Adblock | Read Our Total Adblock Review

FAQs

Bottom line

When you reset your phone or computer, your privacy settings may go to their original default settings, and you want to be sure you set them back to your preferences. Most devices come with multiple privacy options, but customizing them gives you the ability to choose how and if your data gets shared.

If you’ve made all the privacy setting changes we’ve gone over and still feel you want a little more data security, you can use tools like VPNs, ad blockers, and data removal services to improve your online privacy.