Video:Chrome Privacy Settings

SHARE ON                

Transcript:Chrome Privacy Settings

Today we’ll review how to configure and control your privacy settings for your Google Chrome browser.

Changing your browser settings for privacy and security is easy to learn and, when properly customized, can greatly improve your browsing experience and further safeguard you from online threats.

Customize Password Options

To start, open Google Chrome and head up to the very top right and click on the tool icon, creating a drop down menu. From here, click on “Options”. Now click on the tab “Personal Stuff”. Here we can modify the options for when Chrome saves our passwords.

When you login to a website that requires a password, you can set your browser to automatically save that password and simply fill it in for you on your next visit. While convenient, this is obviously not something you want to engage if you’re using a public computer.

If you choose to accept requests for password saves from Chrome, you can then check out each site you’ve decided to have the password saved for and what the exact login information is. The exceptions tab marks which websites you’ve declined to save a password for. Simply click the remove button on the right to delete from either of these lists.

Customize Cookie Settings

The rest of your privacy controls on Chrome are located within the “Under the Hood Tab”. Now click on “Content Settings”. The first tab open here is for Cookies, an important part of your internet privacy.

A cookie is actually a text file matched to the website you’re visiting that is created by your browser and saved on your Hard Drive. This text file saves your user information, which the website accesses to customize itself to you every time you return.

Your best bet of the three options shown is to leave it on allowing local data to be set, since many websites require cookies to work at all. What you may want to do is click the box below to block all third party cookies without exception.

Third party cookies belong to the ads and other extraneous elements on the website you’re visiting, and not the domain itself. Blocking them can be helpful since advertisers can track your browsing history and other information using these cookies.

Securing Your Location

The last tab you’ll want to take a look at is titled Location, at the very end. Here you can govern whether sites can track where you’re accessing the internet from based on your IP address.

Tracking your location is usually used for targeting the on-screen ads as closely as possible to your interests. If you’re not interested in such ads, then it’s usually better to just disable this option.

How to Clear Private Data

Close this window and you should still be looking at the Google Chrome Options page, which should still be on the “Under the Hood” tab. From here click on “Clear Browsing Data”, then click the slide-down menu to specify how old the information you want deleted will be. If you’re using a public computer you’ll probably want to delete the browsing history, but the two biggest things you may want to clear are your cookies and your cache.

Your cache is good in that it allows web pages you’ve been to before to open faster by saving some of their information on your Hard Drive. What’s not so good is that your cache can be read by certain websites and programs to catch glimpses of your private information.

Incognito Browsing

Google Chrome includes a handy feature called Incognito Browsing, activated by again clicking on the tool symbol and clicking “New Incognito Window”. Anything you look at in that window won’t leave an internet or search history and won’t add to your cookies, all while leaving your normal settings intact.

To learn more about your browser’s privacy settings and other information visit About.com’s dedicated Web Browser Pages.