- You know how that one ad follows you
everywhere around the internet?
Those ads are incredibly annoying
and they're kind of a perpetual reminder
that you're not anonymous online.
No matter where you go, someone knows
what you've been up to.
Maybe you looked at a sneaker on your laptop last week,
and now ads for it are appearing on news sites,
on your Facebook feed, maybe even on your phone.
That happens because websites and advertisers,
they want to track us all across the internet.
That's helpful in some cases.
You want a website to remember that you're logged in,
but it's not helpful in a lot of other instances.
Most of it is that advertisers can make sure
that you're seeing their ads,
or so that they can target you
with even more specific ads based
on what you've been looking at.
It means they're collecting a ton
of information on you.
That's something you shouldn't have to put up with.
And there's some easy ways to put a stop to it.
(upbeat music)
So maybe you're thinking, well,
I have private browsing mode.
It's available on Chrome, Firefox, you name it.
And that mode is helpful,
but it doesn't have everything you need.
Part of privacy mode basically creates a new,
untouched identity every time you open
up the browser and wipes it away
once you close the screen.
That's really helpful if you're on a shared computer
and you want to say buy a gift for somebody
without leaving any traces behind,
but it's not good for long-term use
because you actually do want your browser
to remember some things.
You might not want Amazon
to have its ads tracking you everywhere,
but you do want Amazon to remember
that you're logged in.
So how do we do that?
You need to start blocking companies
from following you around the web.
And that's actually really easy to do
because most browsers have an option for it.
Safari actually has it enabled by default,
but Chrome, Firefox, and Edge all have an option
in their privacy settings to block third-party cookies.
That's a good, safe place to start
that'll increase your privacy.
Okay, so what does it actually mean though?
What are all these cookies
and ad trackers we've been talking about?
Well, a cookie is a chunk of data
that web sites store on your computer.
At its most basic level,
this could be Facebook storing your login credentials
to keep you signed in, which is good and helpful.
Now one website can't access the cookies stored
by another website.
But the problem is, ad companies can work for
and be present on multiple sites.
That lets them gain your browsing information
from one place to use in another.
So for example, maybe you're looking
at Legos on a web store.
Then the next day, you're
on some completely different website,
but you see an ad for the Legos you were looking
at yesterday.
That happened because the first site you were on,
had an ad module that's also
on the second site you're visiting.
That ad can check your saved cookie
to see what you were looking at yesterday
and show you an ad for it today.
That gets even creepier when it happens across devices.
Advertising data isn't just kept on your computer.
Some of it ends up back on advertisers' servers.
So if you use multiple devices on the same WiFi network,
that network could identify them as belonging
to the same person.
So an advertiser might be able to figure out
that the same person who looked at Legos
on a laptop is also the person who owns this phone.
And now the ad is on your phone too.
This all happens for a couple reasons.
For one, advertisers want to know who you are,
so they can target ads to you.
And two, they want to make sure you actually saw their ads.
They get what they're paying for.
Even if you find personalized ads helpful,
it's hard to argue the web hasn't come packed with trackers
and advertisers haven't taken things a bit too far.
So that option built into your browser can help,
but it's not perfect.
Some work better than others
and none of them block everything.
If you're really serious about it,
you can start to download browser extensions
that'll do even more.
If you're on a desktop, one I really like is Privacy Badger
from the non-profit electronic frontier foundation
or the EFF.
It doesn't block all trackers outright,
instead it sort of learns as you're browsing.
It only blocks the ones that it thinks are misbehaving.
So you might still see some trackers,
but they shouldn't be too invasive.
You might want to do the same thing
on your phone too.
You can download a browser
that automatically blocks trackers
like Firefox Focus, which is available
on iOS and Android.
Or if you're on iOS and want to keep using Safari,
you can download a content blocker,
like 1Blocker, which will allow you
to block trackers and a lot more too.
You should also be mindful of privacy settings
where they're available to you.
Facebook and Google both operate immense ad networks,
and they each give you some degree of control
over how much data they're collecting on you,
and how much they personalize their ads.
Other ad networks even let you opt out
of some tracking if you go to optout.aboutads.info.
Anything that gives you an option like this is helpful,
but it doesn't necessarily mean
that advertisers are no longer collecting
and storing data on you.
If you want to go even further
to protect your privacy, there's more you can do.
You can download an extension like HTTPS Everywhere,
which is also from the EFF,
which makes sure that you're always going
to the secure version of websites whenever possible.
And if you really, really need
to browse privately because of surveillance concerns
or censorship, there's always Tor,
which goes a long way to protect your privacy online.
This isn't something that most people are gonna need,
but if you're really concerned about it,
you should know that it's an option,
and it's easier to get started with than you think.
You really just need to download
and install the Tor browser.
I think the best place to start is
that option in your browser that blocks some
of the trackers online.
It's not gonna break anything,
and it's gonna make the web feel a little bit less creepy.
Thanks for watching, this is from our new series Workflow.
If you liked watching it, let us know in the comments
and be sure to check out Verge Science,
which is our newest YouTube channel.