Opting Out of Google Ads Is Not De-Googling
Resetting your advertising ID is a two-tap fix with a narrow blast radius. Worth doing, and worth being honest about: Google is still stitched into everything else on the phone.
Topic
Tracking
A collection of 28 issues
Disable Ad Tracking on Android (2026)
Android's ad tracking controls have moved, and the advertising ID is no longer going away. Where the settings are in 2026, what deleting the ad ID actually does, and what it does not fix.
Disable Ad Tracking on Apple Devices (2026)
Apple sells advertising too, and the profile used to aim it is built on your own device. Three separate switches, in three different places, and turning off one does nothing to the other two.
WebRTC - Embedded Content Tracking
You can be paying for a VPN and still hand a website your real IP address, because the browser feature that powers video calls asks for it directly. Test yourself first, then decide what runs in which browser.
Browser Fingerprinting
Delete every cookie you own and the site still recognizes you. Time zone, screen, browser settings and the versions of software you happen to run add up to something close enough to a name.
Spy Pixels - Email Tracking
Two-thirds of non-spam email carries one. You never click anything to set it off — opening the message is the entire interaction, and the sender learns roughly where you were when you did.
Privacy Search Engine
Every query you type is a statement about what you want, what you fear, and what you are about to buy. Ghostery makes the case for an engine that keeps none of it; this is a brief note and a link out.
Apple "10" List
Ten things an iPhone owner should be able to do without looking them up — including wiping the device after ten wrong passcodes, and finding the location switches that are not on the main screen.