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

AT&T Says It’s Pumping $250 Billion Into New Infrastructure Improvements

Technologies

Apple’s New Smart Home Display Delayed Until Fall Over Siri Issues

It has been nearly a year and a half since the company announced the AI-powered product.

Your home could get smarter with Apple’s Siri, but it will have to wait a few more months. Bloomberg reported the iPad-shaped AI home hub won’t be ready until September, several months after the company was hoping to launch it this spring. Apple engineers first need to complete work on a new and improved Siri assistant for the home device, code-named J490, according to Bloomberg.

Apple was hoping to release J490 this month, along with a slew of other new devices, including the iPhone 17e, MacBook Neo, MacBook Air M5, new Pro models, and iPad Air M4. Apple first teased the smart home display in November 2024.

A representative for Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Siri is Apple’s virtual assistant that uses voice recognition and AI to fulfill a variety of tasks and commands, along with intriguing uses. You might use Siri to find your iPhone — «Hey Siri, where are you?» — or to hear the weather forecast — «Siri, what will the weather be today?» Siri is available on iPhones, MacBooks and iPads. It was launched in 2011 as a feature of the iPhone 4S.

As CNET reported last month, Apple engineers have struggled to push the upgraded Siri assistant out the door. It isn’t fast enough, gets confused by complex commands and doesn’t interact well with other Apple AI models. The company is also wrestling with how much personal data to access to inform the AI, and the new Siri is not yet able to complete in-app tasks, such as finding a photo and posting it to socials, all with one command.

It has been nearly two years since Apple announced that it would give Siri a major upgrade. In the meantime, competitors like Alexa Plus and Gemini for Home have entered the marketplace.

Tech tester Jon Rettinger, whose YouTube channel has 1.66 million subscribers, says the repeated delays in upgrading Siri can «erode» confidence in Apple’s ability to keep up in the AI race.

«Apple as a whole is still one of the strongest companies on the planet. But their AI play is clearly the weakest link in an otherwise very strong chain,» Rettinger told CNET.

Rettinger said he has had issues getting Siri to complete basic commands, such as setting two alarms at the same time, and that it’s a bit of «a mess» right now.

«Having said that, the iPhone has such massive market penetration that I’m not sure it will actually matter in the end. Which is kind of wild when you think about it,» Rettinger said.

Facial recognition for residents

The hardware for the forthcoming smart home display has already been finished. It resembles an iPad and can be either attached to a wall or rest on a half-domed-shaped base, the Bloomberg report said.

The device will be equipped with facial recognition, so when residents walk up to it, they will be shown personalized data such as music preferences, news headlines, appointments, reminders, tasks and so on.

The screen interface will include a bunch of circular app icons, similar to the display on an Apple Watch. The Bloomberg report said the smart home display will be the first of several home devices by Apple. Future products include a tabletop robotic limb with a 9-inch screen, a smart security camera and a Face ID-enabled smart doorbell.