 You know how that one ad follows you everywhere around the internet? Those ads are incredibly annoying and they're kind of a perpetual reminder that you're not anonymous online. No matter where you go, someone knows what you've been up to. Maybe you looked at a sneaker on your laptop last week and now ads for it are appearing on news sites, on your Facebook feed, maybe even on your phone. That happens because websites and advertisers are able to track us all across the internet. That's helpful in some cases. You want a website to remember that you're logged in, but it's not helpful in a lot of other instances. Most of it is that advertisers can make sure that you're seeing their ads or so they can target you with even more specific ads based on what you've been looking at. It means they're collecting a ton of information on you. That's something you shouldn't have to put up with and there's some easy ways to put a stop to it. So maybe you're thinking, well, I have private browsing mode. It's available in Chrome, Firefox, you name it. And that mode is helpful, but doesn't have everything you need. Private browsing mode basically creates a new untouched identity every time you open up the browser and then wipes it away once you close the screen. That's really helpful if you're on a shared computer and you want to say buy a gift for somebody without leaving any traces behind. But it's not good for long term use because you actually do want your browser to remember some things. You might not want Amazon to have its ads tracking you everywhere, but you do want Amazon to remember that you're logged in. So how do we do that? You need to start blocking companies from following you around the web. And that's actually really easy to do because most browsers have an option for it. Safari actually has it enabled by default, but Chrome, Firefox and Edge all have an option in the privacy settings to block third party cookies. That's a good safe place to start. That'll increase your privacy. OK, so what does it actually mean, though? What are all these cookies and ad trackers we've been talking about? Well, a cookie is a chunk of data that website stores in your computer. At its most basic level, this could be Facebook storing your login credentials to keep you signed in, which is good and helpful. Now, one website can't access the cookies stored by another website. But the problem is ad companies can work for and be present on multiple sites. That lets them gain your browsing information from one place to use in another. So for example, maybe you're looking at Legos on a web store. Then the next day, you're on some completely different website, but you see an ad for the Legos you were looking at yesterday. That happened because the first site you were on had an ad module that's also on the second site you're visiting. That ad can check your saved cookie to see what you were looking at yesterday and show you an ad for it today. That gets even creepier when it happens across devices. Advertising data isn't just kept on your computer. Some of it ends up back on advertisers' servers. So if you use multiple devices on the same Wi-Fi network, that network could identify them as belonging to the same person. So an advertiser might be able to figure out that the same person who looked at Legos on a laptop is also the person who owns this phone. And now the ad is on your phone, too. This all happens for a couple reasons. For one, advertisers want to know who you are so they can target ads to you. And two, they want to make sure you actually saw their ad so they get what they're paying for. Even if you find personalized ads helpful, it's hard to argue the web hasn't become packed with trackers and advertisers haven't taken things a bit too far. So that option built into your browser can help, but it's not perfect. Some work better than others and none of them block everything. If you're really serious about it, you start to download browser extensions that'll do even more. If you're on a desktop, one I really like is Privacy Badger from the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation or the EFF. It doesn't block all trackers outright. Instead, it sort of learns as you're browsing and only blocks the ones that it thinks are misbehaving. So you might still see some trackers, but they shouldn't be too invasive. You might want to do the same thing on your phone, too. You can download a browser that automatically blocks trackers like Firefox Focus, which is available on iOS and Android. Or if you're on iOS and want to keep using Safari, you can download a content blocker like OneBlocker, which will allow you to block trackers and a lot more, too. You should also be mindful of privacy settings where they're available to you. Facebook and Google both operate immense ad networks, and they each give you some degree of control over how much data they're collecting on you and how much they personalize their ads. Other ad networks even let you opt out of some tracking. If you go to optout.aboutads.info, anything that gives you an option like this is helpful, but it doesn't necessarily mean that advertisers are no longer collecting and storing data on you. If you want to go even further to protect your privacy, there's more you can do. You can download an extension like HTTPS Everywhere, which is also from the EFF, which will make sure that you're always going to the secure version of websites whenever possible. And if you really, really need to browse privately because of surveillance concerns or censorship, there's always Tor, which goes a long way to protect your privacy online. This isn't something that most people are going to need, but if you're really concerned about it, you should know that it's an option and it's easier to get started with than you think. You really just need to download and install the Tor browser. I think the best place to start is that option in your browser that blocks some of the trackers online. It's not going to break anything and it's going to make the web feel a little bit less creepy. Thanks for watching. This is from our new series Workflow. If you liked watching it, let us know in the comments and be sure to check out Verge Science, which is our newest YouTube channel.