How To Watch YouTube Without Being Watched.

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.     

How To Monitor your time on different Social Media.

If  you find yourself endlessly scrolling through your Facebook and Instagram feeds for several hours every day, then check out the social network’ new dashboards, which serve as a regular reminder of how much the time you’re wasting.

They show you how many hours you’ve spent on Instagram or Facebook over the past week, along with your daily average, allowing you to take action by cutting the number of notifications you receive. Crucially, they also let you set a reminder that prompt you to stop browsing after a set of time.

Access the time monitoring dashboard On Facebook and Instagram.

In Facebook- Access your dashboard on Facebook by selecting the Menu button and choosing Settings & Privacy, ‘Your time on Facebook’.

In Instagram- Simply tap the menu icon in the top-right corner of your profile and select Your Activity.

Just be aware that the times are shown only relate to the device on which the app is running, so estimates won’t be accurate if you keep switching between desktop and mobile.

How To Pin Websites To The Desktop.

We all visit a lot of different websites daily but from all that list there is only a few website which we visit regularly. 

So instead of searching for the website on a browser, again and again, you can create a short cut icon of the website to your desktop.

Pin the website to the desktop.

I am using Chrome browser for explaining this process, you can try the same from other browsers also.

Step 01: First, open the browser which you want to pin and click on three-dot in the upper right corner.

Step 02: Click on More Tools and then click on Create shortcut.

Now you can see a short icon of the website created on the desktop.

Chrome also lets you drag the padlock icon situated to the left of a URL and drop it on the desktop to create a shortcut.

How To Hide Folders Names on iPhone and iPad.

I love using folders on my iPhone, placing all my TV apps together or tidying away my social-media apps, but the folder names make the screen feel very busy.

One solution for this problem is that you can create folders in the dock that don’t have names, but for all others, the method is not the same.

Hide Folder Names on iPhone and iPad.

Step 01: First, open a black text message or email and type [ ] (note the space between the brackets).

Step02: Next, press and hold the space between the brackets and select to copy it.

Step 03: Now, go back to your folders on the Home screen and press and hold one until they start to shake –usually. You do this to move icons around the screen.

Step 04: Open the folder you want to rename, use the X to clear its current name and double-tap in the space.

Step 05: Select Paste when the option appears and the iPhone will add the space you copied earlier into the field.

Step 06: Tap Done and you now have a folder with no name. 

This method can work on the iPad. You just have to follow the same steps discussed above in this post.  

How To Close Windows Laptop Lid Without going to Sleep Mode.

Closing the lid of your Windows laptop will send it into Sleep mode. If you are using you laptop as a second screen than don’t want to use it for that time then also you have to leave your laptop open and running to avoid your laptop going to sleep mode.

After exploring some Windows 10 settings, I found a setting in the Control Panel that let you close the lid without sending the laptop to sleep.

You have to adjust your power settings to close the laptop lid and still keep it on.

Step 01: Right-click the battery icon in the System Tray and select Power Option.

Step 02: Inside Power Option- on the left, ‘Choose what closing the lid does’ and you will find Power and sleep buttons and lid settings.

Step 03: Under, When I close the lid:, set it to ‘Do nothing’ from the drop-down menu and click on Save.

Now you can close your Windows laptop lid without moving your laptop to sleep. 

Note: But one-thing to remember that from now, you have to use commands on the Start Menu to put your laptop to sleep or shut, once you’ve made this change.   

How To Download Any Audio You Hear on Any Website.

Streaming is designed to be ephemeral, which means that music and other audio you play in your browser is supposed to stay there. But as anyone who used to tape radio shows will tell you, there’s nothing like having your own copies of cool stuff you hear, which makes chrome Audio Capture an invaluable tool. 

This nifty extension lets you record any audio that’s playing in the current browser tab, and save it to your computer in MP3 or WAV format.

Following Steps To Download Any Audio You Hear on Any  Website.

Step 01

To start recording, you first have to install a chrome extension named-Chrome AudioCapture.

Step 02

After installing the extension, choose the website, radio streams, podcasts, sound from online videos or web-based voice calls which you want to record.  

Step 03

To record the sound of that website, click on the  extension and then click on Start Capture. Or, you can use the keyboard shortcut for the same-

• Ctrl + Shift + S to start capture on the current tab.
• Ctrl + Shift + X to stop capture on current tab.

This keyboard shortcut may not work if the same shortcut is using by another installed extension.

Note- The maximum capture time is officially 20 minutes “due to Chrome memory constraints”, but you can exceed this limit if you don’t mind sacrificing sound quality.

Warning- Remember that any audio you ‘rip’ must only be kept for your personal use, to avoid infringing copyright.

Step 04

After capture is finished, a new tab will be opened automatically for you to name and save the file. Please do not close the tab before saving the file.

You can cancel or download at any time, record multiple tabs simultaneously and mute tabs that are being captured to avoid audio spoilers.

How To Watch Videos As a Group on Facebook.

We’ve grown used to watching, sharing and commenting on videos on Facebook, but despite the interaction, it’s largely a solo experience. Facebook is hoping to change that with Watch Party, a feature that allows members of groups on the social network to view videos together at the same time.

Watch Party works by getting one or more hosts to start and control a stream of live or recorded videos, inviting others to watch and comment.

Facebook says it could be useful for Q&As about  hobbies, tutorials, and group-based activities such as exercising. And even though it can’t be used outside of groups or Pages right now, Facebook believes it will eventually bring friends and family together for shared experiences.

Note- But to use the feature you must own one group.

Following Steps To Use Watch Party Option of Facebook.

Step 1: If you run a group, you’ll now see the Watch Party option in the status update box.

Step 2: Select it, click Add Video and find content that you want to ‘Add to Queue’.

Step 3: Once you’re ready, Click Done, write a status and invite people to join.

The profile pictures of those watching will appear at the bottom of the screen.

Step 4: When the stream has finished, the videos watched during the Party will be saved in a post, with the comments and reactions stripped away.

So by following this steps, you can watch videos live with all your group members and enjoy the party.

Best Privacy Browser To Keep You Anonymous Online.

Keeping yourself anonymous on the web is very difficult nowadays. As the popular search engines like Google and Yahoo store so much of your personal information and even your geographical location to show you the results. In this post, we are going to discuss five browsers which offer the most secure and hassle-free route to browsing the web in private.

List of Anonymous Web Browsers.

• Brave.
• Tor Browser.
• Epic Privacy Browser.
• LibreFox.
• Iridium.

01. Brave | brave.com

Key Features of Brave Browser.

• Brave defense is mainly concerned with advertising.
• It blocks the third party ads and cookies.

Brave immediately looks and feels familiar because  it’s built using chromium, the same Google-developed an open-source browser framework that powers Chrome. Brave’s icons have a different design, but if you click the menu button, for example, you can’t help but notice how the core structure of Chrome has barely changed.

This essentially makes brave feel like the chrome browser you’re already comfortably familiar with, except that it comes preinstalled with a strong collection of enhancements to counter the internet’s privacy-invading tactics.

Brave’s defenses are mainly concerned with advertising. The browser does a competent job of blocking ‘third party’ ads and cookies, where information about your activities on one site can be tracked through to another –but doesn’t disable ‘useful’ cookies, such as shopping baskets and preference settings. You can easily adapt the level of protection from a panel within the browser’s standard settings page.

As well as avoiding some of the trackings that go on while you traverse the web, this has the added benefit of speeding things up. There’s no question that skipping the adverts make pages download more quickly –there are simply fewer data to process.

However, this alone wouldn’t be enough, largely because the Tor Browser can do so much more for your privacy than block ads. Brave acknowledged this itself last summer and added a new ‘private window with Tor’ option, which is accessible from the main menu. This means that when you want to browse in the utmost privacy, where even your ISP can’t track you, Brave offers it at the flick of a switch.

02. Tor Browser | www.torproject.org

If you take your private browsing extremely seriously, head straight for the Tor Browser.

Key Features of Tor Browser.

• Defend yourself against tracking and surveillance.
• Hides you from tracking even from your ISP. 

This robustly private browser isn't just about ad-blocking (though it does that, too)–its aim is to totally maintain your privacy from the moment you launch it.

Tor hides your tracks from even your ISP, by encrypting site requests at source and bouncing encrypted data through anonymous, voluntarily run servers. Think of it as a VPN that’s open-source and run like a peer-to-peer network, rather than by an individual company.

Tor browser is based on Firefox but has the Tor technology built-in, so you can perform private browsing sessions without having to install Tor separately or use it across everything you do on the internet.

03. Epic Privacy Browser | www.epicbrowser.com

Key Features of Epic Privacy Browser.

• Ads are blocked by default but not good as Brave and Tor.
• It has a built-in proxy service with nine proxy locations available.

There’s something ironic about a privacy browser that encourages you to enter your email address in order to stay updated on its development, but that’s what you see if you download Epic Privacy Browser from its own website. Once it’s installed, however, the privacy starts in earnest.

Ads are blocked by default, though we found a few sites that snuck them under Epic’s radar but were successfully spotted by Brave and Tor.

Epic has its own proxy servers built-in, so you can make it look as if you’re visiting a website from another country, should you wish to circumvent regional restrictions. There are nine proxy locations available, including two in the US.

04. LibreFox | librefox.org 

This is a version of Firefox that has had some of the basic privacy leaking elements switched off and a selection of add-ons included.

Although it saves you the hassle of doing it yourself, there’s nothing here that you couldn’t recreate with your own choice of privacy add-ons, if you already have a few favorites.

05. Iridium | iridiumbrowser.de

Iridium is a stripped-down a version of Chrome that has all the unpleasant privacy-exposing bits of the basic browser removed.

That’s only half the story, though. It doesn’t make any efforts to block ads or hide your tracks, though you could do this with the usual privacy add-ons.

If you want to create your own private browser with your preferred add-ons, Iridium is a good starting point. However, it isn’t the all-in-one solution that our award winners offer.

Incognito or Private Browsing modes

Chrome, Firefox, Edge

If you only want the local record of your browsing session deleted. However, while you could use it to hide your browsing habits from your family, it won't escape the all-seeing eyes of advertisers, your boss (if you’re online at work) or your ISP.