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Here’s how to stop Facebook from tracking your browsing data once and for all

Published Jul 2nd, 2014 11:44AM EDT
How To Stop Facebook Tracking

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Facebook always seems to be taking heat for something, and its most recent slip up involved conducting a massive psychological experiment on its users without their knowledge or permission. Mere weeks before this latest uproar, however, Facebook found itself the target of user complaints for another reason: The company announced that it would begin tracking users’ web browsing history and using it to serve targeted advertisements.

But thankfully, there is now a way to stop it once and for all.

In an earlier post, we told you how to stop Facebook from using your browsing history to serve targeted ads. The method described in that post involved adjusting your privacy settings and filling out and online form, but according to AdBlock, those solutions aren’t permanent.

“The issue has been predictably contentious, not the least of which because Facebook decided to stop honoring Do Not Track,” AdBlock wrote in a recent blog post. “To their credit, however, the social media giant provided users with instructions on how to opt out of tracking. But that approach relies on a cookie, which means: you’d have to apply it to every browser on every device you own; it may expire when you least expect it; and if you clear out your cookies you have to reapply.”

As you might have guessed, AdBlock has you covered.

The company has added a new feature to its ad-blocking browser plugin that allows you to disable all social media buttons. This stops Facebook and other social networks from running any code that might track you, thus preventing any data from being used to serve you targeted ads.

Instructions on how to enable the feature can be found by following the link below in our source section.

Zach Epstein
Zach Epstein Executive Editor

Zach Epstein has been the Executive Editor at BGR for more than 10 years. He manages BGR’s editorial team and ensures that best practices are adhered to. He also oversees the Ecommerce team and directs the daily flow of all content. Zach first joined BGR in 2007 as a Staff Writer covering business, technology, and entertainment.

His work has been quoted by countless top news organizations, and he was recently named one of the world's top 10 “power mobile influencers” by Forbes. Prior to BGR, Zach worked as an executive in marketing and business development with two private telcos.