Clear Your Search History and Become a Digital Ghost

Clear Your Search History and Become a Digital Ghost

Each time you search online, this information will include the website where you have an account. This data  collected and stored by search engines like Google, social media networks like Facebook and retail giants like Amazon - will not be lost if you clear your browser's search history.

This site may use your search history to gather a profile of who you think you are so that they can show you content or products that they hope will address your interests. For these technology companies, it's easy if you understand your preferences and they can display your targeted ads. It appears that the service can only collect this information if you are logged in to your account for that site. However, if this listing doesn't suit your searches in the past, or you don't want it to affect your future crawls (you probably have a lot of questions about camping accessories but don't want to show ads for related products anymore), you can remove them from your existence.

To do this, you need to check each other's accounts. Here's how you can clear your search history on some of the largest and most popular search engines, social media networks, and retail websites.

How to clear your Google Account history

When you search for something using one of Google's services - which includes email, maps, calendar, news, file storage, videos, etc. - the service records that information. Your search history will help the technical company customize the search results. For example, if you rarely search for sports-related terms, a recent search for "dolphins" was more likely to involve aquatic animals than the NFL team in Miami. Your data also tells Google which ads are most likely to attract you to click.

To clear this information, go to My Google Account and sign in. Among the many options you will find sites with privacy, sharing and security. Find Data and Privacy and go to the History Settings header. Here you can view your entire event history, location history, or YouTube history. Select one of these categories - or just My Activity to see them all - and click Delete below the activity search bar. Google will ask you for the date range you'd like to delete, but you'll only be prompted to click Delete as the next confirmation step if you select All time or set your own range. You can also click the X next to the items to delete individual items or the entire history in one day.

And if you don't want to continue, you can go back to the History Settings header, click on a category and select Off in the settings. This stops collecting history for this type of activity.

How to clear Bing search history

Not everyone relies on Google to search the web. If you use Microsoft's Bing search engine instead, you can clear your history.

First, go to the site and click Sign In. Then click the menu button (three horizontal lines) at the top right and then Search History. Then find the Activity header, where you can check the boxes for each item as the "select all" checkbox and then the Clear to clear everything you have checked.

If you have a Microsoft account, you can also find Manage or delete search history headers and click Clear All to clear your entire search history on the device you're using, or select Go to Dashboard, sign in to Microsoft and have a look. activity categories in the Manage your activity data section. Click on one to expand it, and if the data is saved, you should see the option to delete everything. For example, Microsoft Edge users can find their browsing history here.

How to clear your Facebook search history

While browsing Facebook, you can find a page that interests you, a friend's name or an event. To see all your recent questions, open the Facebook page and click on the search box at the top of the page. To remove these searches, click the Edit button to the right of the results.

A screen will appear with a complete log of everything you were looking for on Facebook. To delete an item, click the three dots to the right of the item, then select Delete and click Delete again to confirm.

To browse your entire Facebook search history at once, click Clear Search at the top right. This will delete all your previous queries from Facebook's servers.

How to clear your Twitter search history

Like Facebook, Twitter records your recent searches so you can easily access them again. It also allows you to delete them.

Visit Twitter and click on the Twitter search box at the top of the page. It will take your last queries, such as your saved searches - keywords that Twitter told you to save if you want to do it multiple times. To save an existing search query, click the three dots in the upper right corner of the search results and click Save Search.

However, if you want to clear your searches, the process is fast. Just click the X button to the right of each recent or saved search to remove it from the list, no confirmation screen is required. To delete all recent searches at once, click Delete All and confirm by selecting Delete in the pop-up dialog box. However, it will only delete your newly performed searches - your saved searches will remain intact.

How to hide search history on Amazon

Unlike other sites on this list, Amazon doesn't keep track of your search terms - at least there's no one you can browse and check through. Instead, it records everything you see on the web. This listing affects your referrals and the ads you see.

To see everything you've clicked on the page, go to Amazon, look at the toolbar at the top of the page, hover over the account name, and click Browse History under your account header. The results are displayed in reverse chronological order, from newest to oldest. Well, to delete them. Click Remove from view below all to remove it from the view. Previously, you could have deleted all items at once, but Amazon seems to have removed this option. It's also unclear whether Amazon has deleted its own listing of these searches, or whether you and anyone looking at your account history can see it. If you want Amazon to stop tracking your browsing history, click Manage History and disable the toggle link.