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Comment by mattowen_uk | Hacker News Reader

I have everything that Google allows me to turn off, turned off. And I rarely search (via Google) when logged in with my Google account, and I still see filtered/tailored results based on my IP location and my interests. I also run uBlock Origin, and Cookie AutoDelete, so Google are going to great lengths here to keep on tracking me.

It's now at a stage where if you don't want to be tracked, you should just stop using the Internet.

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Ironically, the problem may be that you're logged out of your Google account. The privacy settings are saved to your account.

I, like you, have turned everything off. I use Startpage for search, but on Youtube, I find I still get personalized recommendations if and only if I accidentally log out. If I'm logged in, I get a depersonalized Youtube page.

(Yes this is problematic and I'm not suggesting anything, just explaining.)

I have YouTube search and watch history turned off. Yet if I watch a video that someone sent me a link to, I will still get that exact video or others related to it in my recommendations afterwards. Normally, only videos that I explicitly save (by upvoting or subscribing to a channel) should alter my recommendations, but clearly Google is still saving something.

Huh. Since it sounds like you do vote on videos and subscribe to channels, is it possible Google is actually just making (correct) predictions based on that?

I'm just surprised because it really does work for me. But, I make a point of never voting/subscribing/commenting/queuing/etc. And the difference between when I'm logged out and logged in is very stark.

The videos I'm thinking of that someone sent to me are way outside of what I would normally watch, so seeing that exact video in recommendations and other videos from the same channel immediately afterwards on the home page can't be a coincidence. But most of the time what I watch doesn't affect recommendations, only the odd time.

In addition to curating what I want to see with upvotes/subscriptions, I also use the "Not interested" and "Don't recommend channel" buttons heavily. For some reason YouTube always recommends those stupid "meditation music" videos, even though I have never watched one and I always block those channels. Honestly, YouTube's recommendation engine is shite; even when I tell them exactly what I like, it still recommends absolute tripe, and most of what I discover comes from external (personal) recommendations.

Actually, YouTube tracks your likes/dislikes data in a different way and it needs some obscure method to disable the privacy option. I don't remember the link though

What do you mean? I want Google to remember my ↑likes and subscriptions, so they can give me recommendations that actually reflect my preferences. I just don't want them to track which videos I watch or search for.

You can pause those in the settings under watch and search history. My problem is after I like a video or two, YouTube starts recommending me the same video over and over again. Or very similar videos. I'd rather have just a clean-slate experience.

I have turned off search amd watch history; see my previous comments.

If it starts recommending the same videos to me I press the Not Interestes button.

I think they cache everything which was recommended for some time, haven't tested the exact period.

I block all Google and Facebook domains at a router level, and haven’t really had many issues. I’m sure there’s sites that don’t work with those blocked but for whatever reason they’re not sites I visit. I get cloud flare captchas occasionally but barely enough to be annoying.

I also use a VPN 95% of the time, only turning it off for Netflix occasionally.

It is the most practical solution to make sure there are no leaks to G.

The most annoying thing is that reCAPTCHA stop working: more website administrator should consider migrating to hCaptcha.

I have an iPhone and don’t use the Gmail app. For a year or two I got a pathetic email from google saying “email is better with the gmail app!” Pretty sure google was sad I don’t have any of their apps on my phone

Point of the story is saying they already won in getting all your data is really what let’s them win.

If you use a VPN, which are getting more common, and stay away from using too many Google/Facebook products you’ll do pretty well.

No, it's enough to turn off Javascript. Virtually all tracking code is in Javascript.

Absolutely not.

GP was concerned about:

> filtered/tailored results based on my IP location and my interests

IP location is typically computed server side, based on the originating IP of requests. Your interests are recorded server side, based on what requests were made.

"Tracking" in JavaScript is a big problem, and disabling JS does help prevent third party tools from knowing about you, but the discussion here is about first-party tracking: tracking being by Google, whose site you're using.

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