You’ve probably hit “allow all cookies” more times than you’d like to admit without really thinking about what cookies are or what websites are using them for. Below, we’ll give you a quick run-through explaining how cookies work and what you need to know to learn how to disable cookies on chrome.
Information and data security online should be a priority for everyone. Understanding cookies, how they work, and how to customize your privacy settings is just one step toward being secure online. Learn more about data privacy and what you can do to protect your data today.
What are Cookies?
First, let’s start with an overview of what internet cookies are.
A cookie is a small text file stored on your computer that is placed by a website you visited. They’re used to personalize your experience on those sites and are crucial to many internet activities that you love. For example, without cookies, you couldn’t do any online shopping because your cart would reset every time you clicked onto a new page, even if it’s on the same site.
Cookies also allow you to stay logged in to your different accounts, so you don’t have to log into Netflix every time you want to stream a show, for example.
How Cookies Work
The technology behind cookies is pretty simple. When you visit a website, that site stores a small text string on your browser with an ID. Then, the next time you visit that site, it will send that ID back to the website’s server to access the saved data. This way the website can look up any info associated with that ID and use it to personalize your experience on the page.
If you’ve ever seen ads that seem tailor-made for you or recommended products that related heavily to what you’ve been browsing, that’s the work of cookies and the text strings that make them up.
How to Block Cookies in Google Chrome
If you don’t want a website to track any of your information, you can block cookies on Google Chrome by tweaking a few settings. Here’s how:
- Open up Google Chrome on your computer
- On the top right, click the three vertical dots and then click “settings”
- Go to the “privacy and security” tab, then click “cookies and other site data”
- Next, choose between “allow all cookies,” “block all cookies,” “block third-party cookies in Incognito,” and “block third-party cookies”
After selecting, the browser will implement your preference and it will stay the same until you change them.
How to Unblock Cookies in Google Chrome
Blocking all cookies is not recommended because sites that require you to sign in won’t work because they can’t access your ID every time you move onto a different page. And any other sites with saved preferences won’t remember them.
If you do decide to unblock cookies in Google Chrome, the process is very similar.
- Open Google Chrome and navigate back to the three dots menu and click “settings”
- Select “privacy and security” and click “cookies and other site data”
- Select your new preference
Learn More About Cookies and Privacy
If you want to learn more about cookies and how they’re collected, Google has many resources to help you understand exactly what each preference means. Plus, you can customize your settings to allow or block cookies from specific sites.
Cookies are a small part of internet data privacy and everybody needs to know their options for protecting their information. Learn more about data privacy online and how to take the first steps toward staying secure in this blog.