Earlier we wrote about how Google transfers the archives of user movements for 10 years to the police …
“If you are using a proprietary product and do not pay for it, then most likely the product is you” - write these simple, but at the same time great words. In one form or another, this phrase has been encountered for a very long time. And unfortunately, the further, the more it is true. Google is not alone in this regard. For a simple estimate of the amount of data Google collects, skip straight to step # 3. Impressed? And that's just what the company decided to show the user. And what other data is stored on the servers, probably no one knows. And the further it goes, the worse it gets. Even the Chrome browser in its latest version has actually turned into another Google service, and not just a program. Well, isn't it time to at least moderate the IT giant's appetites and take care of your privacy at least a little?
Step # 1: opt out of Google products
Yes, the simplest and most obvious step. It will still not be possible to completely abandon interaction with Google - the same ads, counters, captcha and other services will still come across you on the Internet and in applications. But this does not interfere with keeping communication with the company to a minimum, both on the desktop and on mobile devices. What is worth looking at? We were lucky with the search, we have Yandex, and for foreign sites, DuckDuckGo is suitable, which especially emphasizes concern for the privacy of users, and even Bing, which has grown quite well in recent years. Just remember to change the default search in your browsers. Instead of Gmail, you can use just an infinite number of alternative services. Here it is again "Yandex" and Mail.ru, and if you do not like them either, then you can look towards Outlook and Yahoo. When,when you definitely don't want someone to scan your mail for advertising purposes, it makes sense to look at paid services like ProtonMail, Zoho or FastMail. Cards? And again "Yandex"! Plus HERE, TomTom, MAPS. ME and OpenStreetMap. For lovers of perversion, there is Apple Maps.
There is nothing to say about the Google Play content store - there are dozens of sites for music, films, books. There are dozens of messengers too, and Google, in general, is not the best. There are also plenty of alternative cloud storage and online office suites. Microsoft offers both. Just for files there is Yandex. Disk, Dropbox, Cloud Mail.ru and Mega (for privacy lovers). There are also a lot of browsers besides Chrome. One of the best now, of course, Firefox, but the choice is Opera, Vivaldi, "Yandex Browser", Brave, Edge. On mobile devices, there are also many choices. Paranoid people can, for example, abandon the Google keyboard in Android (and give all the typed text to another company, of course). Is there anything for which there is no substitute? Actually, there are, but for the average user there are only a couple of such products. First, it's obviously YouTube, because you can't find so much content anywhere else. Secondly, Google Translate, although other services are gradually catching up with it.
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Step # 2: disable Google data collection
If you do not want to completely abandon Google products or there is no possibility, then you should at least set up interaction with it. In general, Google has for some time now been offering a short privacy settings wizard, which contains the basic settings for the information collected. You can use it, or you can manually go through individual items. It is up to you to decide what to disable and what not to disable. For example, the history of apps and web searches significantly affects how search works, which can be handy. You can turn off personalized results directly for the Google search engine.
The only thing that, perhaps, should not be touched is the item "Information from devices", which is also responsible for saving the settings of mobile devices in the cloud. It's just convenient. For Android devices, there is also another controversial option - wireless positioning in addition to GPS. It improves the accuracy of navigation, but periodically sends various data to Google, albeit anonymized, as claimed. If you don't like it, then you can turn it off too.
In addition, you can simply refuse some of Google's products if you don't need them. Beforehand, it is strongly recommended to download all available data so as not to lose it. Please be patient as it can take a long time to export. And think twice whether you really need it (that is, not in this case). There is another important point: information can also be collected by third-party applications that have access to your account. Check if there is any site you forgot long ago and if some programs want too much data. Exactly the same advice - check permissions - is useful for any other system, be it browser extensions, Windows or iOS with Android.
Step # 3: clear Google history
To assess the scale of the problem, just log into your Google account and go to the general view of activity or a detailed list of recorded actions, as well as the history of working with devices and to a list of almost all purchases associated with the account (this mainly includes data from Gmail). This is unlikely to be all, because some of the data that can be deleted simply does not appear in these lists. But all the same, it makes sense even to remove them in case of concern. In the settings there is a fairly convenient filter by product type and date, so you don't have to clean everything up. Once again, we repeat that Google uses this data, among other things, to improve the search and work of services for you personally.
For maps, everything is a little trickier. In the general activity stream, only requests, terrain views, and so on are recorded. But the so-called visited places in the terminology of Google (location history) can be viewed in this section. In the same place at the bottom right there is an icon in the form of a gear, where the coveted item for clearing history is located. Please note that it will take some time to delete the data, so there is no need to frantically refresh the page. In the same menu, you can clean up personal tags and places marked on the map.
Step # 4: set up Google ads
All the data that is mentioned in the first steps, Google uses to slip the most suitable advertising from its point of view. This is the main business of the company. It is still impossible to completely abandon advertising, unless, of course, resort to the services of blockers, which, strictly speaking, also successfully sell the service of non-blocking of certain campaigns and companies. However, you can turn off so-called interest-based advertising. That is, Google will still show you some kind of advertising, but it has every chance, oddly enough, to get bored very quickly, since it does not shine with variety. Seriously, I’ve been haunted on YouTube for months by the same series of commercials for a product I don’t really need.
You can disable personalization of ads on Google services in one step. But that's not all! There is a special option "Recommend friends", which can show your reviews in various services to your friends, and vice versa, show their reviews to you. To disable interest-based advertising from Google on other sites, you will need to install the IBA Opt-out extension. The company also offers the Google Analytics Opt-out Add-on to disable the web counter and Google analytics. At the same time, it is recommended to install the Protect My Choices extension, which will allow you to remember the settings for refusing interest-based advertising for other companies. There are even Android and iOS apps for the same purpose. EFF offers its Privacy Badger solution to block spyware and other trackers.
But it's still worth a try. A special site offers to scan the settings of various ad networks. After this - slow, I must say - the process below you need to press the Opt out of all button, wait and … press again, and press again until the number of unanswered networks decreases to a minimum or zero. For residents of Europe, there is a separate similar service that also offers browser extensions. If you often use VPN or "live" on a corporate network, then these can come in handy. True, the reviews about these systems are contradictory: they say, they do not always work.
Step # 5: set up Google Chrome
If there is no way (or desire) to abandon the Chrome browser, then again, you can at least dig into its settings to improve privacy. The main options are found under Settings> Advanced> Privacy & Security. Here, in principle, you can turn off all the checkboxes, except for two: sending a ban (this is the Do not track function) and safe browsing. The first allows you to partially get rid of tracking movements from site to site, although not all resources are able to work with it. The purpose of the second is clear from the name - this function protects you from phishing and viruses. Below, in the language settings, you can turn off the page translation suggestions.
There is also a whole group of content settings. If you have never done this, then go through the parameters of each item and make sure that there are no extra permissions for individual sites. In general, the default recommended settings are not harmful. Separately, you can deal with cookies, thanks to which, in many ways, user actions are tracked. First, it is worth turning on the blocking of cookies from third-party sites. Secondly, you can sacrifice convenience and enable the option to delete cookies when you close your browser. In this case, each time you start Chrome, you will have to log in to all web services again. Similar settings, but to a lesser extent, are available in the mobile version of Chrome for Android. In it, by the way, you can disable the Data saver function, which actually passes part of the traffic through Google's servers.
But … this does not concern Google itself. In Chrome 69, logging into any of the company's services automatically includes logging into the browser itself, and vice versa. You can disable this feature by typing chrome: // flags // # account-consistency in the address bar and selecting Disable from the Identity consistency between browser and cookie jar parameter. To activate, you need to restart your browser. However, if this does not bother you, then you can at least configure the synchronization of all kinds of data by disabling the transfer of unnecessary or too sensitive (passwords, for example). In the end, no one prohibits at the same time and clean up the entire history of actions in Chrome (chrome: // settings / clearBrowserData).
We should also remind you that Incognito mode is not a substitute for the above steps. Moreover, in an amicable way, every time you log in, you should check at least basic Google privacy settings. And all the aforementioned extensions also need to be allowed to work in incognito mode, and it doesn't bother to go through sites with ad settings. However, all this practically does not protect against logging, for example, IP addresses and other information that can be retrieved from the browser or application by the server owners.
What else can you do?
Strictly speaking, nothing more significant that would not affect the comfort of using the Internet and applications, in general, can not be done. For the sake of interest, you can visit the Panopticlick and webkay services or go through the BrowserLeaks sections to assess how accurately you can be identified on the Internet. And these are just the basic techniques that can be used to track a user. Even a VPN doesn't always work. What to do? Alas, the topic of online privacy is too broad, but if you really care about this, then there are a couple of sites with tips and sets of programs and web services: PRISM Break and Privacytools. However, they will not help to protect your data 100%, so you have to either completely go offline, or relax and have fun.
Author: Ilya Koval