ISSUE 380|COMPUTER SHOPPER|OCTOBER 2019 9797
period). Click the three vertical dots at the
topofthe screen and select Delete.
LogginginwithGoogle
Rather than signing up foranewaccount
when youuse awebsite, manysites giveyou
the option to log in with your Google account
instead. This cansavetime, as youcut down
on the number of logins youhave. However,
some information is sentfromyour Google
accounttothe third-party website.
When yousign up foraservicewith your
Google account, youneed to check what
information it wantstoaccess carefully.A
good websiteorservicethat’sjust using your
Google accountfor authentication will only
want access to basic accountinfo, so they
cansee your email address and basic profile
information but nothing else. If you’re
signing up foradifferenttype of service, you
mightfind that moreaccess has to be given.
Forexample, sign up forIFTTT so that
youcan automatesending emails and
organising your Gmail account, and you’ll
havetogivefull access to your email. The
trick is to knowwhat youwantthe serviceto
do and only authorise those that need the
minimum amountofaccess. If youthink that
something is trying to request toomuch
information, then look foranalternative
sign-up option, such as creating aseparate
accountjust forthat service.
That’sall well and good fornew services,
but do youhaveany idea what access
you’vegiven to old services and websites?
Fortunately,Google provides an easyway
to check this with its security settings
(myaccount.google.com). Loginwith your
Google accountand click Security,then scroll
down and select Manage third-party access.
Here youcan see alist of every app or
websitethat has access to your Google
accounts. Click one to expand the viewand
see what the app or servicecan access.
Few things should need full access to your
account; forus, only Google Assistant
devices and Google Chrome did. Everything
else should havelimited access.
If youspotanything that youdon’t
remember giving access to,oraservice
looksasifithas access to toomuch data,
click the Remove button. The app or service
will then no longer be able to access your
information or change anyofyour data.HowtostopGoogletrackingyou
The easiest waytopreventGoogle
tracking youistosimply sign out of your
accountwhen youuse anyservices.
Although Google may still put acookie on
your computer,and it canstill find out some
information about you(your IP address,
location and browser type, for
example), it won’tstore this
information and link it to you.
Of course, Google tells
younot to do this, as when
you’resigned in it cangive
youpersonalised results
based on your preferences
and what you’velooked at
in the past. Ultimately,it’sall about your preferences and what you
want Google to knowversus howyou
want its services to work.
The other main question that people
haveis: what about incognitomode in your
browser? Using this mode will letyou use
Google without logging in, which means that
what youlook at won’tbeassociated with
your account. However,incognitomode
doesn’t hide all of your information. The
main differenceisthat when youclose your
incognitobrowser tab, your browser history
is deletedand cookies from that session are
deleted. Don’tlog into your Google account
while in incognitomode, as that will start the
tracking and datarecording afresh.
Likewise, if youuse incognitomode to visit
other sites, they’ll still havearecordofsome
details and, if yousign in, datacan be
collected and tracked back to you. Think of
incognitomode as moreofaway to remove
what you’velooked at, rather than away of
browsing the internetanonymously.DUCKDUCKGO
If you wanttosearch the internetand
don’t wanttobetracked, then you can
tryDuckDuckGo. This search engine
promises nottotrack you, will block
tracking adverts and stores no
information on whatyou’re looking for.
DuckDuckGo still has adverts,
althoughthese are onlybased on what
you’ve searched for, and the data is not
passed on to advertisers; you’ll never
see an advertbased on whatyou looked
at on another website.
The downsideisthatDuckDuckGo
isn’t quite as good asearch engine as
Google. Search for‘Computer Shopper
magazine’ and the second search result
is forthe US brand, PC Mag; on Google,
the search results are all about this very
magazine, as it should be.Still, if you’ve had enoughofGoogle and
wantyour privacy back, DuckDuckGo is
the search engine foryou.ABOVE:DuckDuckGo promises nottotrack you
or storeany private dataABOVE:Google keeps arecordofeverything that
you’veboughtonline
ABOVE:Yo ucan remove access to anyapp or
servicethrough Google’s accountdashboardLEFT:Yo ucan delete your old
activity fromGoogle, removing all
your private information