We leave footprints when browsing the Internet. These include the pages we visit, the links we click and the time spent in each content. You also provide other data that can be used to personalize, follow and, classify you as well as analyze you.
These companies have many purposes. They are most commonly used for creating customer profiles, pricing manipulation, segmentation, and analysis to find more effective sales strategies. The storage, treatment, and analysis of large amounts of information, known as BigdataIt, has made tracking a lucrative form of mining. Companies that specialize in monitoring the online behavior of individuals or groups have been able to make use of user data. These companies will then sell the analyzed data to companies from different sectors, such as communication, retail distribution or institutions of intelligence and public or private institutions.
It isn’t possible to prevent our internet browsing habits from being tracked, analyzed, and classified. We must take control of what little we have.
Privacy options are built into all browsers and they are a necessary first step in protecting our privacy. This is not enough, as current technologies will force us to discontinue using any functionalities or programs on Web pages that make it impossible for us to use them. To maintain complete privacy, we would have to discontinue using plugins in our browser. Most of the service pages that we use would be unusable.
It is possible to create a first barrier to protect our privacy by paying attention to certain tasks and practicing the skills that we all need. Protecting our privacy from web page tracking should begin with:
You should review your privacy settings regularly and, if you can, when we update your browser.
Learn how to delete browsing data and cookies
Clear browsing data and cookies from the main browser
Once Chrome is open, click the menu icon in the upper left corner to delete all browsing data. Select More tools> Clear browsing information. Select the information you want to delete in the dialog box. After selecting the information you want to eliminate (we recommend that you choose the “the origin time” option, which will remove everything), click Clear browsing data.
Once Firefox is opened, click on the menu icon in the upper corner. Select History. Then, in the drop-down, click on Clear History. You will be able to choose the time period you want to delete (we recommend the all option), as well as the elements that you want to delete. It is recommended that you delete at least the following elements from Firefox: Download and browsing history cookies forms cache active sessions and cache. Click on Clean now to close.
After IE10 has opened, click on the Configuration icon in the upper-right corner of the window.
Click Internet Options in the drop-down menu and then click Delete. It is recommended that you check at least the following elements in the box: Cookies, temporary Internet files, history, download history, form data, and history. After marking the elements, click Delete to close the Internet options.
Microsoft Edge offers a button (three horizontal bars called Hub) that gives access to the history as well as its deletion.
It also contains the configuration menu, which can be accessed by clicking on the “More”, three points. This will let you delete browsing history as well as cookies and data cache (the minimum recommended). After marking the elements we wish to delete, go to Settings and click on “Choose what to be deleted”.
Click on the icon in the top right corner of the browser screen. A menu will open and we’ll click on Settings. Privacy will be available under the Settings menu. Click on the DELETE BROWSING DATA BUTTON in the privacy menu. We recommend that you mark at least Browsing History and Cache as well as Cookies in the window. Click on DELETE to close.
This is the same procedure as Chrome, but with some modifications in the names. Click on the MORE button in the top right to access SETTINGS. Next, click PRIVACY. Finally, click the DELETE button.
Click on the SETTINGS icon. There, click Safari. In the Safari window, click Delete history from web sites. In the next window click Delete data. The arrows at the top of the screen will allow us to exit.
