everywhere around the internet?

Those ads are incredibly annoying

and they're kind of a perpetual reminder

that you're not anonymous online.

No matter where you go, someone knows

what you've been up to.

Maybe you looked at a sneaker on your laptop last week,

and now ads for it are appearing on news sites,

on your Facebook feed, maybe even on your phone.

That happens because websites and advertisers,

they want to track us all across the internet.

That's helpful in some cases.

You want a website to remember that you're logged in,

but it's not helpful in a lot of other instances.

Most of it is that advertisers can make sure

that you're seeing their ads,

or so that they can target you

with even more specific ads based

on what you've been looking at.

It means they're collecting a ton

of information on you.

That's something you shouldn't have to put up with.

And there's some easy ways to put a stop to it.

(upbeat music)

So maybe you're thinking, well,

I have private browsing mode.

It's available on Chrome, Firefox, you name it.

And that mode is helpful,

but it doesn't have everything you need.

Part of privacy mode basically creates a new,

untouched identity every time you open

up the browser and wipes it away

once you close the screen.

That's really helpful if you're on a shared computer

and you want to say buy a gift for somebody

without leaving any traces behind,

but it's not good for long-term use

because you actually do want your browser

to remember some things.

You might not want Amazon

to have its ads tracking you everywhere,

but you do want Amazon to remember

that you're logged in.

So how do we do that?

You need to start blocking companies

from following you around the web.

And that's actually really easy to do

because most browsers have an option for it.

Safari actually has it enabled by default,

but Chrome, Firefox, and Edge all have an option

in their privacy settings to block third-party cookies.

That's a good, safe place to start

that'll increase your privacy.

Okay, so what does it actually mean though?

What are all these cookies

and ad trackers we've been talking about?

Well, a cookie is a chunk of data

that web sites store on your computer.

At its most basic level,

this could be Facebook storing your login credentials

to keep you signed in, which is good and helpful.

Now one website can't access the cookies stored

by another website.

But the problem is, ad companies can work for

and be present on multiple sites.

That lets them gain your browsing information

from one place to use in another.

So for example, maybe you're looking

at Legos on a web store.

Then the next day, you're

on some completely different website,

but you see an ad for the Legos you were looking

at yesterday.

That happened because the first site you were on,

had an ad module that's also

on the second site you're visiting.

That ad can check your saved cookie

to see what you were looking at yesterday

and show you an ad for it today.

That gets even creepier when it happens across devices.

Advertising data isn't just kept on your computer.

Some of it ends up back on advertisers' servers.

So if you use multiple devices on the same WiFi network,

that network could identify them as belonging

to the same person.

So an advertiser might be able to figure out

that the same person who looked at Legos

on a laptop is also the person who owns this phone.

And now the ad is on your phone too.

This all happens for a couple reasons.

For one, advertisers want to know who you are,

so they can target ads to you.

And two, they want to make sure you actually saw their ads.

They get what they're paying for.

Even if you find personalized ads helpful,

it's hard to argue the web hasn't come packed with trackers

and advertisers haven't taken things a bit too far.

So that option built into your browser can help,

but it's not perfect.

Some work better than others

and none of them block everything.

If you're really serious about it,

you can start to download browser extensions

that'll do even more.

If you're on a desktop, one I really like is Privacy Badger

from the non-profit electronic frontier foundation

or the EFF.

It doesn't block all trackers outright,

instead it sort of learns as you're browsing.

It only blocks the ones that it thinks are misbehaving.

So you might still see some trackers,

but they shouldn't be too invasive.

You might want to do the same thing

on your phone too.

You can download a browser

that automatically blocks trackers

like Firefox Focus, which is available

on iOS and Android.

Or if you're on iOS and want to keep using Safari,

you can download a content blocker,

like 1Blocker, which will allow you

to block trackers and a lot more too.

You should also be mindful of privacy settings

where they're available to you.

Facebook and Google both operate immense ad networks,

and they each give you some degree of control

over how much data they're collecting on you,

and how much they personalize their ads.

Other ad networks even let you opt out

of some tracking if you go to optout.aboutads.info.

Anything that gives you an option like this is helpful,

but it doesn't necessarily mean

that advertisers are no longer collecting

and storing data on you.

If you want to go even further

to protect your privacy, there's more you can do.

You can download an extension like HTTPS Everywhere,

which is also from the EFF,

which makes sure that you're always going

to the secure version of websites whenever possible.

And if you really, really need

to browse privately because of surveillance concerns

or censorship, there's always Tor,

which goes a long way to protect your privacy online.

This isn't something that most people are gonna need,

but if you're really concerned about it,

you should know that it's an option,

and it's easier to get started with than you think.

You really just need to download

and install the Tor browser.

I think the best place to start is

that option in your browser that blocks some

of the trackers online.

It's not gonna break anything,

and it's gonna make the web feel a little bit less creepy.

Thanks for watching, this is from our new series Workflow.

If you liked watching it, let us know in the comments

and be sure to check out Verge Science,

which is our newest YouTube channel.