In Google Chrome version 100, Google introduced a privacy guide. This privacy guide will help you walk through privacy in Google Chrome to familiarize you with the various Chrome features and how Google handles the privacy of these features.
Chrome shows you considerations for each feature. This means that there are advantages and disadvantages to the function, which Google shows in a kind of table in Chrome. By reading the considerations you can make your own choice to enable or disable the privacy function.
More and more privacy features are offered in the privacy guide. At the time of writing, there are a limited number of privacy features that you can adjust. Google has indicated that there will be more of these over time.
By going through the privacy guide, you can determine for yourself in Google Chrome how the browser handles user privacy. It also provides more insight, and helps you determine how you want to experience the web to some extent. Let's say it's a start.
Run the privacy guide in Google Chrome
Open the Google Chrome browser. Click on the menu in the top right corner. Then click on Settings in the menu.
Click on “Privacy and security” on the left. In the privacy settings click on “Privacy Guide”.
Don't see the privacy guide? Then take care of that Google Chrome has been updated with the most recent version.
Start Privacy Guide
To start, Chrome indicates that there will be a tour of important privacy and security options in Google Chrome. If you want more information or more settings, you must go to the setting for each security component separately.
For your information: These settings can all be found in the “Privacy and security” settings in Chrome. Click next to start the privacy guide tour.
Search and browsing quality
The first setting is the search and browsing quality setting. There are pros and cons to this feature. Read each consideration and “if this is on” carefully and make your choice whether to enable this feature or not.
The search and browsing quality is mainly focused on extra suggestions based on websites you visit often. The disadvantage is that in order to display the extra suggestions, Google must analyze the websites visited. So they are sent to Google, and it just depends on whether you like that or not.
Make your selection and click next to continue.
Sync history
If there is a Google account associated with the Chrome browser then you can view the history synchronize. This has the advantage that the history is immediately available on all devices where you are logged in to your Google account via Google Chrome.
In addition, Google indicates that better suggestions are displayed in the Google search engine. These suggestions are based on your search history. The disadvantage is that URLs (websites) that you visit are stored in your Google account.
Make your selection and click next to continue.
Safe browsing protection
Safe browsing is the protection that Google offers in Google Chrome. It is a cloud service that performs analyzes of websites, but also of downloads and extensions in Google Chrome. Think of it as a protection that analyzes certain data and protects you by blocking it in case suspicious websites are visited or extensions are found.
There is a optimized security and standard security. The optimized security checks next to dangerous websites that you visit, the downloads, extensions but also password leaks. If cybercriminals have stolen and published online a password stored in your Google account data (not your Google account details) then Chrome will report this. You will then see a message in Chrome that a certain password has been stolen.
The downside to this is that browsing data is sent to Google. Standard protection also protects against unwanted and dangerous websites, downloads and extensions. However, this does not require any data to be sent to Google. This is done locally (stored in Chrome).
Make your choice and click next to continue.
Block third-party cookies
You can block third-party cookies. This is important that you think about this carefully because blocking cookies on third-party websites breaks a lot of websites. This means that many websites will no longer work properly if you proactively block cookies. Are you the average internet user who is aware of the risk of cookies, but does not have the technical knowledge to block all cookies? Then choose to block third-party cookies in incognito mode.
Are you aware of what goes wrong on websites if you block all cookies? Then make your choice and click next.
The privacy check in Google Chrome is now complete. Click done to close the privacy guide.
As mentioned, more privacy guide components will be added over time. This will allow you to adjust your privacy settings even better in future Chrome versions.
I hope to have informed you with this. Thank you for reading!
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