Any iPhone users concerned about their privacy and the ability for third parties to track their Internet activities or perhaps websites they have visited using a browser on their Apple phone. Will be pleased to know that there is an easy way to delete and completely clear cookies from your iPhoneallowing you to remove any Internet history or website data that may be tracking your Internet habits without your knowledge or secretly loaded onto your phone from certain websites.
If you use either the AppleSafari or Google Chrome web browsers on your iPhone, this method of deleting cookies will work on both browsers. For those unsure what cookies actually are, they take the form of small files that websites automatically load onto your phone to store info about your preferences.
For instance, remembering what you have added to your basket, login details and more. Cookies have been designed to improve your browsing experience and it would be almost impossible to visit websites and carry out day-to-day activities without them. However, some third party websites and those looking to Maliciously track your Internet activity can use cookies to breach your online privacy by tracking sites you visit.
These large companies make a fortune tracking your daily internet surfing habits and selling the data to other companies. Luckily, Apple has an extensive set of settings and tools available to you to protect your privacy and data. These settings have apparently cost Facebook over $10 billion in revenue by blocking the ability for Facebook, or rather Meta, to tracks iPhone users and resell your data to other companies for profit.
If you don’t want websites to track your activities on your iPhone, you can block them by going to your iPhone Settings app > safari. In the Privacy and security section, make sure that you have the option for Prevent Cross-Site Tracking enabled. Underneath you can also hide your IP from trackers and even Block all Cookies. But as explained before, perhaps this is not the best option as it could disable functionality on certain websites and online stores.
Other privacy and security options recently added by Apple, allowing you to receive notifications when your iPhone detects a fraudulent website, enable or disable the ability for advertisers to measure how they’re doing with associated ad activity on your iPhone. For more details on all the new privacy features rolled out by Apple last year, jump over to the Apple support site.
Another method to help stop unwanted third parties from tracking your Internet activity is to clear or delete the cookies on your iPhone regularly. You can accomplish this in two ways: by individually deleting cookies for each individual website or by completely deleting every cookie and your browsing history from your iPhone.
Delete iPhone Cookies and clear browsing History
If you would like to delete all cookies and all your browsing history from your iPhone and any devices connected to your current iCloud accountfollow the instructions below.
1. To do this, go to the Settings App on your iPhone
2. Scroll down the safari settings until you see a button highlighted in blue to Clear History and Website Data
3. Read the warning that by clearing the cookies from your iPhone Safari application you will remove history, cookies and other browsing data and your Internet history on all devices signed in to your iCloud account will be cleared.
3. If you would like to proceed, accept the notification and press the Clear History and Data button
If you would like to select individual website data on your iPhone and clear the cookies one site at a time, follow the instructions below.
1. Go to the Settings App on your iPhone
2. Scroll down to the bottom of the safari Settings page until you see Advanced
3. Select site data on the Advanced page
4. Swipe left on the website you would like to clear.
5. Or use the button at the bottom of this page to Remove All Website Data from your iPhone.
By removing website cookies from your phone on a regular basis you are preventing websites from permanently tracking your online habits.
Filed Under: Gadget News
