10 Google Privacy Hacks Everyone Should Know

From managing your Gmail inbox to downloading apps on your Android phone, pretty much every aspect of your digital life has a little bit of Google in it. That is a lot of power in the hands of a company that makes money by selling your data to advertisers. While you can't fully escape Google's tracking without quitting a whole bunch of essential online services, you can use these privacy hacks to reduce how the company tracks you, as well as protect the information in your Google account.Use Gmail aliases to keep your account anonymousYour Gmail account doesn't just have one email address. In fact, it has unlimited addresses, but you need a hack to utilize them. When you're signing up for a new service, you can add another word to your email address, as well as the "+" symbol, to create an alias. For example, if your email is "[email protected]," and you're signing up for an Amazon account, you can use "[email protected]" as your email address. The email will still end up in your main inbox, as if you simply used [email protected]. Not only can this trick turn one Gmail address into an unlimited number of addresses, but it also helps you identify who sold your email address to spammers, because those emails will have the alias in the "To" field.If you wish to make your emails more private, you can also link your Proton Mail account to Gmail. This lets you send and receive emails via your Gmail address, while using Proton Mail's privacy protections such as blocking email trackers. Credit: Pranay Parab Gmail's web view has a crucial security feature that lets you view session logs. This feature is inexplicably buried at the bottom of the inbox, and the font size is tiny, so it's easy to miss. To find it, log in to Gmail on the web, and scroll to the bottom of your inbox. Click the Details button in the bottom-right corner, below "Last account activity." This will show you a pop-up that lists the devices, apps, and locations you've recently logged in from. This makes it easy to see if there's been any suspicious activity in your Google account, and you can click the Security Checkup link in the pop-up to review this data. Just note that if you use a VPN or a service like iCloud Private Relay, you might not recognize your own device's location. To check if unwanted apps have access to your Google account, you can visit this settings page.Turn off personalized recommendations to break out of a search bubbleGoogle wants to show you personalized search results, which initially feels very helpful, but it also ends up trapping you in an algorithmic bubble. The best way to break out of your search bubble is to periodically use other search engines, but if you wish to stick to Google, you can disable personalized search recommendations in Google Search and the Play Store on Android. Go to this settings page, and turn off Personalized Recommendations and Play Personalization.Disable web & app activity to stop Google from tracking your locationGoogle tracks your web and app activity by default, which includes your search history, voice data (if you use the speak-to-search feature), and activity from sites, apps, and devices that use Google services. However, associated information, such as your location data, is also saved to your Google profile, which you might not assume gets included in "Web & app activity." Fortunately, you can disable this tracking by going to this settings page, scrolling down to "Web & App Activity," and turning off all options in this section.Turn off Timeline to stop Google from sharing your location data Credit: Pranay Parab Google's Timeline feature saves your location in Google Maps to create a map of places you've visited. This is useful if you want to keep track of your recent stops; however, Google can use Timeline data to help businesses see how effective their ads were, or how likely you are to visit nearby stores. Its confirmation page confirms this: "Depending on your settings, activity saved as history in your Google Account, including ad interactions, may also be connected to Timeline data to help nearby businesses estimate the likelihood that people will visit their stores. No personal information is shared with businesses."Timeline isn't enabled by default, but in case you enabled it a while ago, and are no longer using it, you can turn it off by going to this settings page. Click Turn off, and delete your activity to remove Timeline data from your Google account. What do you think so far? Get rid of personalized ads to reduce Google's trackingYou can't fully escape Google's ads or tracking, but you can disable personalized ads to stop the company from using your account data to show ads. To do this, go to this settings page, and turn off Personalized ads.Disable smart features to stop Gmail from offering "Smart Reply" suggestionsWhile Google claims that it isn't using your emails to train AI, the company does offer AI features that make your emails feel more robotic than human. One of these is "Smart Reply," which offers email reply suggestions such as "Got it. See you soon." I can type that on my own, and I feel uncomfortable with Gmail analyzing the contents of my emails and replies to offer suggestions that I wouldn't use anyway. You can disable this by going to Gmail Settings > General, or by visiting this settings page. Scroll down to "Smart features," and turn off the checkbox next to it. This will disable Smart Compose, Smart Reply, suggestions for pending replies and follow-ups, spelling, grammar, and autocorrect.Use a physical security key to secure your account against data breachesA physical security key is a great security upgrade. It's a physical barrier that prevents most ways to hack into your account remotely. Even if someone discovers your email ID and password, and has access to your two-factor authentication code, they won't get in without physical access to that key. You can check out Google's support page for physical security keys for more information on compatibility and setting up your security keys.Remove your credit card from Google and use a virtual card insteadIf you're serious about your online privacy and security, I'd advise against keeping your primary credit card saved to your Google account. If your account is compromised or your device is stolen, you risk exposing your credit card to fraud. Instead, use a prepaid virtual card with your Google account. Sites such as Privacy.com offer single-use or merchant-locked prepaid cards, and they allow you to set spending limits too. You can use such services with your Google account to reduce the chances of losing money if your account gets hacked.Turn off personal intelligence to stop Google from using your emails and photos for adsGoogle uses data from Gmail and Google Drive to target ads, which means that your emails, files, and photos could be used for monetization. To stop this, you'll need to disable Personal Intelligence. To turn it off, visit this settings page, and click Turn off Personal Intelligence.