turn off tracking protection for mac chrome

Using incognito mode will prevent anyone else who might use that laptop from seeing that you searched the likes of Google and Yelp for “best spas near me.” And they won’t start seeing spa ads popping up over the following few days. Let’s say you’re shopping for a gift for your spouse on the family laptop-maybe a day pass for a local spa. “If you just want a brand new session that doesn’t remember anything about who you are, then incognito mode will work really well for that,” says Jeremy Tillman, product director at Ghostery, one of several browser extensions that block web tracking. This helps protect against a technique known as fingerprinting, in which data collectors track you around the web by comparing variables such as which browser version and operating system you’re using, which graphics card you have installed, and your IP address. If you search for a product- blenders, say-in a private window, you’re not as likely to start seeing cooking supplies show up in web ads over the next few days.įirefox adds a layer of tracking protection to its private browsing mode. But you may also notice less tracking from advertisers. The most obvious change you’ll notice after a privacy browsing session is that it doesn’t show up under the History tab in your browser. If you’re using incognito mode, “At the end of each session your cookies go away and you get a whole new set the next time you start,” Ur says. They also let big advertising companies, such as Google’s DoubleClick, track you from site to site across the web. Cookies have lots of functions, such as letting you go to password-protected sites without logging in each time and keeping track of what you place in a shopping cart. Next time your browser loads a page with elements from a company’s servers, the information is sent back. The browser also stores cookies, which are little files that websites and advertisers embed in websites. That makes it easier for you to retrace your steps and find the same web pages again sometime later. When you browse the web in a regular, nonincognito window, the browser stores the URL, or web address, of every page you visit and keeps that information even after you close the window you’re in.

Turn off tracking protection for mac chrome