YouTube
lets you find and view virtually any video you can think of, for free-but as
with any Google service, this convenience and choice comes at a price and the
more data you contribute towards Google’s profile of you- even if many clips
you play aren’t representative of your interests.
This profile determines the
type of ads you see on YouTube, which keeps the service free (unless you pay
for an ad-free YouTube Premium subscription) but is more intrusive than you may
realize.
A tool called Customer Match lets companies upload their customer
databases to Google and have them matched to YouTube users, so they can target
those most likely to buy.
Delete the Watch History of Google.
There
are several steps you can take to stop your YouTube viewing habits from being
exploited. First, delete your ‘watch history’ by clicking the History link in
YouTube’s left-hand menu and choosing ‘Clear all watch history’.
Stop YouTube
storing what you watch in the future by selecting ‘Pause watch history’. Next,
click Settings, choose ‘History and privacy’ and ensure all the options,
including ‘Keep all my liked video private’ are ticked.
Finally,
you can escape those pesky advertisers by turning off ‘Ad personalization’,
which means you’ll still see ads but not relevant ones.
How To watch YouTube videos without Ads.
If
you love spending time on YouTube but don’t trust Google with your data, there
is an alternative way to watch that lets you access all the same content, but
without the privacy worries- and no, we don’t mean signing out for Google
account. And here you can watch all videos ads free which you usually get between
the YouTube videos.
It’s
called FreeTube and is an open-source YouTube desktop player (hosted on GitHub)
that’s been “built with privacy in mind”.
Available
for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux, FreeTube lets you watch, search and even
download YouTube videos, without setting through ads and without Google tracking
you using cookies and JavaScript.
You
can even subscribe to YouTube channels without signing into an account, while
your ‘watch history’ is stored locally and privately, rather than being
analyzed and targeted by Google and its partners.
One the catch is that YouTube can still see your IP address when you ‘request videos.
However, FreeTube’s developer suggests that this can be concealed by using a VPN or Tor.
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