Can your history tracked iphone

You can also automatically remove your browsing history — by going to Safari, and then General. One of the options will ask when to remove history items automatically, which you can customise — from after one day, to after one year. Safari keeps track of which websites you visit the most frequently. These appear when you open a new tab on your device, while handy it's not strictly necessary.

You can disable this option by going to Settings, then Safari and then selecting the option to disable Frequently Visited websites.

You can do a version of this on desktop by going to Safari, then Preferences, then General. There are two options for new windows and new tabs when they open — you can set them to open on a homepage or a start page as opposed to your favourites.

There are add-ons you can use to protect your privacy, although these only work on desktop. You can get the extension for DuckDuckGo, which blocks third-party trackers on the websites that you visit and shows you how it boosts each websites privacy. There's also Ghostery. Its Safari extension takes things one step further: it will block all ads and JavaScript trackers that can slow down pages and collect your personal information. To get rid of autofill information on your iOS device, go to Settings, then Safari and find the Autofill menu.

It may be a slight pain but is useful if your phone is ever compromised. On desktop, go to Safari, then Preferences and Autofill. Data can include personally identifiable information, such as your email address and social security number. It can also be your internet activity, including the pages you visit and even metadata like when you visit those pages.

Your email conversations, online purchases, medical information, and even financial details like credit card numbers are all considered data, too. Hackers can use techniques like phishing to scam you and steal your data. But there's also internet service providers, which, in the US, are allowed to monitor your internet activity and use it as a revenue stream. They collect anonymous browsing logs from users and sell that "data" to marketers, which use it to develop hyper-targeted online ads.

Your internet activity can also be tracked by cookies - small bits of text that are downloaded and stored by your web browser. It's also used to improve your internet experience as a whole. Even mobile apps and browser extensions can track your activity.

There are several browser extensions available that claim to help you see who is tracking your web-surfacing habits, but many of them invasively track themselves. The following ones are recommended as safe to use, in that they either help protect you or let you know who is tracking you - while not tracking themselves, or, if they do, it's minimally so.

This plugin forces it to use encryption, which helps protect your online purchases, payment details, and general web surfing from malicious actors who are eavesdropping for theft purposes. It monitors third parties and ad networks that try to track you through cookies and digital fingerprinting and can even auto-block them.

Invisible trackers that monitor you can also be easily blocked with Disconnect. You can also specify which domains to trust and whitelist. Your internet service provider ISP , will also see your browsing, and it may log your online behavior as well.

The process for using this mode will depend on the browser app you prefer. For example, to launch incognito mode with Chrome, tap the Menu button three dots on the top right of the page and choose New Incognito Window. If you forget to browse incognito, you can still clear your saved data.

Just go to the menu again and find Settings. Click that and a dialog box will appear with numerous options for clearing your data. Decide what works for you and hit Clear data. For iPhone users who rely on Safari, tap the Show pages icon two squares on the bottom right of the screen and choose Private.

Now, when you tap the Plus button to open a new window, it will be an incognito one. To erase data collected outside of private mode, open the Settings app, find Safari and tap Clear History and Website Data. Unless you use a chat app with self-destructing messages , it will keep records of your conversations. You can delete these old conversations manually, or try a less time-consuming option: automatically erasing your chat history after a set period of time has elapsed. Within the app itself, you can manually erase conversations from the front screen: Swipe left on the thread and then tap the Delete button.

Unfortunately, not all chat apps offer this auto-expunge function. To leave no trace of conversations on your phone, you may have to turn to manual deletion. Some apps make it easier to purge your entire history all at once. Then make a note to regularly check back and erase your latest messages.