Google Chrome is the most popular browser on the web. However, privacy is one of the biggest concerns for users when using Google Chrome. Do you know that Chrome offers privacy settings page? You can use this privacy settings page to customize the options for you.
How to Access Chrome Privacy Settings Page?
- Open Chrome browser and click dots button on the top right corner that says “Customize and control Google Chrome”.
- From the drop down menu, choose “Settings” option.
- Now, you are in Chrome’s settings page.
- Click on the “Privacy and security” option from the right sidebar to view all privacy settings.
Alternatively, you can go to the command URL chrome://settings/privacy in Chrome address bar to access the privacy settings page.
Top 10 Chrome Privacy Settings
Privacy is one of the the biggest settings section in Google Chrome. Click on the “More” option to view the complete list of options available. However, you should be careful in using these settings which may affect your browsing experience.
1. Clear Browsing History
Firefox and Edge allows you to clear the browsing history when you close the browser. Unfortunately, Chrome does not have an option to automatically clean up your browsing history when you quit the browser. Click on the “Clear browsing history” and clear the history data stored on your browser.
2. Site Settings
Site settings section allows you to setup permissions for individual websites. You have list of options to disable JavaScript, advertisements, cookies, location sharing, Flash, notifications, pop-ups, etc. You can also customize whether to open PDF in browser or download to your computer in order to protect the content from visible to others.
3. Safe Browsing
Internet has full of unsafe websites that will try to steal information from you. Good example is that unknowingly you click on a link that will take you to a harmful site and affect your computer. Google Chrome by default will show the warning when you open non-secure websites. In addition, you can enable safe browsing so that Chrome will protect your computer by blocking dangerous and malicious sites.
When you enable the safe browsing, Chrome will additional option “Help improve Chrome security”. Enabling this will send few URLs you visit along with some system information to Google. If you are worrying about privacy, turn off this option.
4. Warn Password Exposure
Many of us use Chrome by logging into Google account. This will help to sync browsing history and bookmarks across device. However, this can lead to exposure of your password when someone hack your computer. In additional, there are many reasons your Google account can be compromised. Chrome has an option “Warn you if passwords are exposed in a data breach” to warn you if your account is at risk.
5. Do Not Track
Websites will use cookies and track your preferences on the browser. For example, you can see hosting related advertisements after opening web hosting related website. Enable “Send a Do Not Track with your browsing traffic” option to send a do not track request to websites. This will help websites not to track your browsing activities. However, obeying this request depends on the website and not with Chrome.
6. Disable Autofilling Payment Method
Websites will check whether you have any payment method stored on Chrome while you are on the payment page. You can disable this by turning off the “Allow sites to check if you have payment methods saved” option. If you want to completely disable saving payment methods on the browser, go to “chrome://settings/payments” and disable “Save and fill payment methods” option.
7. Disable Preloading
Chrome uses prediction service to preload all the linked URLs on the page to improve the page load speed when you click on any links on the loaded page. You can enable this to speed up your browsing especially when you are navigating within a website looking for many pages. However, Chrome uses cookies to track your preferences. Hence, you can disable preloading to disable the cookie tracking.
8. Manage Certificates in Chrome
Chrome allows you to manage HTTPS/SSL certificates for websites. Clicking on “Manage certificates” option will open the security management app on your PC or Mac. It will open “Keychain Access” app in Mac and Windows Credential Manager in Windows.
9. Manage Security Keys
You can use security keys for features like two factor authentication. If you have security key with your Google account then click on “Manage security keys” option. Here you can assign a PIN, reset the key and manage stored data.
10. Disable Auto Sign-in
Though this option is outside the privacy settings page, it helps to improve your browsing experience. You can enable or disable automatic signing to Chrome when you already logged into other service like Gmail. For example, when you login to Gmail, Chrome browser will automatically login to your Google account. Once logged in, Chrome will start synchronizing all your browsing activities to your Google account. You can disable this auto login by switch of the “Allow Chrome sign-in” option by going to “chrome://settings/syncSetup”.
In addition, you have many other options to disable autocomplete and suggestions in Chrome.
Leave a Reply
Your email is safe with us.