Have you ever felt like you’re being followed because you’ve noticed the same ads popping up wherever you go online? This happens because companies track your online activities to show you personalized ads. Most people find this annoying and feel like their privacy is being violated.
The reason this happens is because many advertisers and publishers use ad tracking software. Ad tracking starts with something called cookies. These are small files that websites put on your computer to remember your visits. Knowing these techniques can help you better protect your privacy from unwanted tracking and ads. In this article, we’ll go over several strategies to help stop this invasion of your privacy.
1. Adjust Privacy Settings
To protect yourself from unwanted ads, you can start by changing your privacy settings across various platforms. Browsers allow you to increase your privacy by changing certain settings. For example, you can adjust settings to block cookies from other websites. These cookies are often used to track your online activities across different sites. You can also activate ‘Do Not Track’ requests, although not every website will respect this setting.
Social media sites also use ad tracking. They offer options within their settings that let you opt out of personalized advertising. You can adjust how much your activity and profile information is used to target ads by accessing the ad preferences in your account settings.
Before you start changing your privacy settings, it’s a good idea to first deal with data brokers. You should ask these companies to delete your personal information or use a company like DeleteMe to do it for you.
2. Use Ad Blockers
Ad-blocking software and browser extensions help you have a better time online by stopping unwanted ads and trackers that follow what you do on the internet. Ad blockers stop ads from showing up on the websites you visit.
Ad blockers work by checking the content on a website against a list of known ad-related patterns and scripts. They are really good at protecting your privacy because they stop the tracking tools in ads. These tools gather information about where you go and what you do online to help advertisers show you specific ads.
Using ad blockers can also make your online experience safer. Some ads contain harmful software that can mess up your device. Blocking these ads lowers the chance of accidentally getting bad software on your device.
3. Use a VPN
A Virtual Private Network, or VPN, is a tool that helps keep your online activities private and secure. When you use a VPN, it encrypts, or scrambles, all the data you send over the internet, making it hard for others to see what you’re doing. This is especially important when you’re using public Wi-Fi, as it helps protect your personal information from hackers.
A VPN also hides your IP address, which is the unique number that shows where you are. This can help reduce ads that are targeted based on your location, and it lets you browse the internet as if you were in a different place.
