Many of us ask Google from time to time to answer our strange questions: What is the meaning of life? Or: Is it possible to put tin foil in the microwave?
And when the shame of such late-night meditation is too much to bear, it’s no secret that users can (or perhaps think so) delete their history with a few clicks.
It looks like your search data stays with Google unless you take some other sneaky step to get rid of it completely. The most common way to clear your past searches is to press the “Control” and “H” keys on your keyboard or click the three small dots in the upper right corner of Chrome.
But the stealth feature goes further by deleting any data associated with your account that the tech giant may be holding.
To do this, first click on your profile picture in the upper right corner of Chrome, next to the search bar.
Users should then click on “Manage Your Google Account” which will take you to a menu with several tabs including “Data & Privacy”, “Security” and “Personal Information.”
The easiest way to access your web history is to type “my activity” in the search bar on the page (not at the top of the screen). Clicking on “My Activity” when it opens will take you to another page showing all your past searches.
It can be filtered by website used or search history if you want to browse past pageviews.
However, if you want to permanently delete these searches, click the “Delete” button.
Users can choose to delete all subsequent searches or those viewed on the last day, time, or custom date range.
Before the removal takes place, whether it’s Chrome or other sites like YouTube, Google will show you a list of products that contain it.
After clicking it, you may be asked to give a final confirmation before proceeding with the deletion.
While this clears your transaction history, Google says it will retain other data for as long as you hold your account to help the tech giant improve its services.
Google’s privacy policy reads: “We retain some data about the age of your Google account to help us understand how users interact with our features and how we can improve our services. For example, after you delete a specific Google search. My activity is ” How often you search, but not what you search for.” . When you delete your Google account, information about how often you search is also removed.”
The My Activity tab can also be used to modify location history, as Google provides nearby recommendations and personalized maps for those providing this data.
It is turned off by default, but users can enable it as long as they are over 18 years old.
Here’s Google’s advice: “When you turn on Location History, you’ll see many features in Google products and services, including personalized maps, recommendations based on where you’ve been, that help you find your phone, and real-time traffic updates. .” And more useful ads.
Source: Daily Mail
Source: Arabic RT
