Technologies

Stop letting Facebook track you across the web

No, the Off-Facebook Activity tracking rumor is not a hoax. We’ll show you how to keep the social media platform from tracking your web browsing.

If you haven’t been using the Off-Facebook Activity privacy feature, now’s the time to start. The tool, introduced by Facebook in 2019, lets you see and control data that apps and websites share with the platform — and monitor the kind of information third-party apps can access.

With the privacy feature, you can clear the history of apps and websites that have shared your data. You can also toggle off Future Off-Facebook Activity, which tells Facebook to disconnect any information the company has shared from your account. Or you can selectively choose which companies you want to stop sharing your activity, and it’ll stop showing those targeted ads.

Here’s how to get a better grip on your Facebook privacy.

How to manage what sites share with Facebook using the Off-Facebook Activity tool

Using Facebook’s business tools, you can see what information apps and websites have sent to the company. From there, you can clear the information from your account and turn off future «off-Facebook activity» tracking from your account. You’ll be able to control this for all apps and websites so they’ll no longer be able to share your search activity with Facebook.

To get started, go to Settings & Privacy > Settings > Your Facebook Information > Off-Facebook Activity. From there, you can manage your Off-Facebook Activity, clear all history and turn off Future Off-Facebook Activity for your account.

What happens when you turn off Off-Facebook Activity

Once you clear the activity managed by the tool, Facebook will remove your identifying information that the apps and websites share. That means Facebook won’t know which websites you visited or what you looked at, so you won’t see targeted ads from those sites.

What else you can do to improve your privacy on Facebook

If you’d like to control which ads you see (or don’t) on Facebook, go to your Settings on your phone or desktop and select Ad Preferences.

Under Advertisers and Businesses, you can see which advertisers have run ads using a list uploaded to Facebook containing your information. If you select a company and choose Don’t Allow, you won’t see ads from advertisers when they use a list from that company.

You can also go to Ad Settings and turn off ads based on data from partners, ads based on your activity on Facebook Company Products that you see elsewhere and ads that include your social media actions. However, doing this won’t delete any data and you’ll still see the same number of ads as before. The Off-Facebook Activity feature is the best way to remove your data.

If you’re an iPhone user, a feature introduced in iOS 14.5 called App Tracking Transparency requires you to give permission to apps including Facebook before they can use your data for targeted ads. (Here’s how to use App Tracking Transparency in iOS 14.5.)

Want to know how to further control your privacy online? Here’s how to find and delete your Google data now and the browser privacy settings you should change immediately. Plus, what digital security experts wish you’d do to protect your phone app privacy.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for May 21, #240

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, No. 240, for May 21.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Connections: Sports Edition tried to fool players today by tossing in four coin words: quarter, dime, nickel and penny. Yet as longtime players know, that’s way too simple for a Connections puzzle — and this was indeed a trick. The four coin words all ended up in different groups. Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Watch the clock.

Green group hint: Not offense.

Blue group hint: Nice throw!

Purple group hint: Fancy footwear.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Sections of a game.

Green group: Football defensive terms.

Blue group: Words used to describe a good pass.

Purple group: Eponymous basketball shoes, minus the S

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is sections of a game. The four answers are half, inning, period and quarter.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is football defensive terms. The four answers are 4-3, 46, nickel and prevent.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is words used to describe a good pass. The four answers are apple, assist, dime and dish.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is eponymous basketball shoes, minus the S. The four answers are Chuck, Jordan, LeBron and Penny.

Technologies

You Can Now Play Fortnite Again on iPhone and iPad

The long wait is over: Fortnite returns to Apple’s App Store in the US.

Fortnite is back on iPhone and iPad, as announced in its post today on X.

The game had been in and out of the Apple App Store multiple times over the years as its parent company, Epic Games, and Apple clashed over developer fees. But now, following a court ruling against Apple, the massively popular game can finally be downloaded again on iOS devices.

The US District Court for the Northern District of California ruled on April 30 that Apple’s behavior toward web transactions was in bad faith and anticompetitive. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney posted about the ruling on X on the same day.

«For the reasons set forth herein, the Court finds Apple in willful violation of this Court’s 2021 Injunction which issued to restrain and prohibit Apple’s anticompetitive conduct and anticompetitive pricing,» court documents read. «Apple’s continued attempts to interfere with competition will not be tolerated.»

Sweeney made the announcement of Fortnite’s return to iPhone and iPad shortly after the April 30 court ruling.

«We will return Fortnite to the US iOS App Store next week,» Sweeney wrote on X. «Epic puts forth a peace proposal: If Apple extends the court’s friction-free, Apple-tax-free framework worldwide, we’ll return Fortnite to the App Store worldwide and drop current and future litigation on the topic.»

Read more: The 15 Best PC Games Right Now

What will be new on Fortnite for iPhones?

In celebration of its iOS relaunch, Fortnite is rumored to be bringing back the Tart Tycoon skin. The monochrome cosmetic outfit was first released in 2020 and is meant to be a parody of Apple. Alongside the rare item, the Tart Tycoon Cup event is said to be returning.

Fortnite had been banned from iOS devices since 2020, when the flagship iOS device was the iPhone 11.

Why was Fortnite off the iPhone and why is it back now?

In 2021, Epic Games and Apple went to court. Apple largely won that court battle, but didn’t walk away unscathed. A federal judge also ordered Apple to remove its anti-steering barriers, meaning the company must allow apps downloaded from the App Store to steer customers to third-party means.

From the archives: Apple Scores Legal Win Over Epic in Fortnite Lawsuit

Apple appealed the decision later in 2021, with proceedings continuing through 2022 and into 2023. Apple eventually won the appeal. However, the court upheld its anti-steering ruling from 2021 in the process.

When Epic took Apple back to court in 2025, the company pointed out that Apple hadn’t complied with the original ruling in 2021. The judge agreed and is now forcing Apple to follow the rules to the letter. This includes not charging developers for non-App Store payment methods and allowing developers to tell people that such third-party options and platforms exist. The time frame is simple enough. Apple is to comply with these new rules immediately.

Epic Games also has lawsuits against Google and Samsung, seeking to achieve the same result for users of Google Play.