Blog Summary – Google might know you more than your friends and family at some point. Yes, it’s true, they know about your sleeping pattern with the internet usage and the things on your mind with the search results. But do you wish this to stop? Let’s learn about the ways to stop Google from tracking you.
Do you wish Google just stopped showing you all those relevant ads? If that is the case and you do not want Google to keep tracking of everything you type, watch or say, then you must read on.
Google has become an integral part of our lives in one way or another. And it all started with the search engine giant helping us search for anything and everything on the internet. That’s how it became so popular with users globally. With its multiple services, you can enjoy sending emails, store your files on the cloud, reach the destination, make video calls to your friends and so much more. But when it comes to privacy, Google has been a lot more invasive than we thought. So, we look into the measures we can take to learn how to keep Google out of our lives as much as possible.
Must Read: How To Stop Personalized Ads On Google And Youtube
What does Google know about me?
Let’s start with finding out what Google exactly knows about you. Google collects a lot of information to improve the user experience and also to target the ads to us. Even though you are the one who has given Google these permissions to save up the user data and activities, it feels like there is a lot at stake. Google knows personal information like your name, age, phone number, address, location, added email address, contacts, your photos, call and message history, search results, storage device files.
While this seems little to some, it is enough data on someone to create a profile by Google to show you relevant ads. While we think of Google as a service, for Google all of its users are the products and they are gaining profit from it. All the third-party advertisements, we see on the screen are targeted with the use of personal information and choices.
As you might have seen how you enter a word and it will fill in with the rest of the sentence specific for you.
But this is about the way Google works and gives you all those free services you have been enjoying. Not only it asked you to provide the said information but you agreed to its Terms and conditions which most users fail to read before checking it. Now, we are going to take a look at how you limit the prying on Google in your life.
How to stop Google from tracking You
If you are looking for a way to stay aloof from Google tracking, we must tell you there are plenty of ways available. All you have to do is tweak some of the settings on your account and device. So, what are you waiting for? Go on and real all of the methods listed below –
1.Turn off the email Smart Compose-
However helpful it might seem, the email Smart compose feature is picking up our typing styles and imitating you. This is also using all the information about you from your chats, personal emails, internet search results, websites visited, bookmarks, etc. Artificial intelligence works on our information very smartly and sneakily to figure out what we are going to type next. That’s how it can give you the correct words and frame sentences in the email. Now that you know what is the culprit, we can easily fix it for you by following these steps.
Step 1: Start with opening your Gmail, sign in, and go to the Settings from the gear icon on the right corner. Go to See All Settings.
Step 2: Now navigate to the General Settings and under that you need to scroll down to the Smart Compose option.
Step 3: Here you see Writing Suggestions Off as an option. Check this option to turn off the writing suggestions for your email composition. Additionally check these – Smart Reply Off, Smart Compose Personalization Off. This is one of the huge steps which will disable Google to read more into your private emails, chats, and searches.
Step 4: Now click on Save changes to apply the changes to it.
But remember even though you have turned it off for writing emails, Google being the owner of Gmail still has access to your mails and other services.
Must Read: Is Google Photos The Only Choice To Store & Organize Photos
2.Turn off Google Assistant –
Voice assistance is one of the most loved technologies of this decade, Google Assistant being one of the tops among them. Google Assistant has been helping you to navigate through your Android device quite smoothly while answering your questions.
To turn off this intruder, you can easily follow these steps on your Android device –
Step 1: Open Settings on your phone and then go to Account Services.
Step 2: Look for Search, Assistant & Voice, and then go to Google Assistant.
Note: These steps may vary for different models of smartphones, so make sure you go to the Google Assistant Settings on your phone.
Step 3: Turn off the Google Assistant Slider to keep your Android phone safe in front of the constant prying from the Google voice assistant.
To follow these steps on your iPhone –
Step 1: Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
Step 2: Go to Privacy and then find the Microphone under it.
Step 3: Now, look for Assistant, and under this list search for Google Assistant and turn it off.
Also Read: Google and Privacy: How Reliable Are New Auto- Delete Settings?
3.Turn off the YouTube History-
You would think that YouTube history won’t be anything to worry about, but you are wrong. Google also picks up a lot of information on you based on the YouTube searches, watch history, etc. To help you with the correct suggestions on YouTube and other services, it takes up information from your YouTube history.
Follow the steps to keep Google out of your life by turning off the YouTube history.
Step 1: Go to the My Google Activity from your account.
Step 2: Under the My Google Activity page, you will see the three – Web & App Activity, Location Activity, and YouTube History.
Step 3: Click on the YouTube History option and it will take you to the next page.
Step 4: Turn off the toggle switch shown in the beginning.
It will show you a warning message that it will pause YouTube History for you. Click on Pause.
There you are with the YouTube history off on your Google Account.
Read more on How to Delete Your Google Activity History on Your Computer?
These are some of the ways to limit Google from accessing your information. But if you want Google to be out of your life entirely, then switch to a different browser. We would recommend using Private Browser for Android which is a reliable and secure browser application.
Conclusion –
If you do not mind Google use cannot be minimized until you go for the alternatives but you can make sure to limit the tracking process. With this blog, we hope you can reduce the tracking on your devices. Also for additional privacy and security measure, make use of a VPN service on your device while online. We recommend using Systweak VPN which has tons of features to offer. Get Systweak VPN for Windows PC now –
We hope this article will help you in learning how to stop Google from tracking your every move. We would like to know your views on this post to make it more useful. Your suggestions and comments are welcome in the comment section below. Share the information with your friends and others by sharing the article on social media.
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