There’s a catchy saying around in a valuable lesson about our personal technology: The devil is by default..
This saying refers to the default settings that are embedded deep inside the devices, apps, and websites used by tech companies. These settings typically allow you to share data about activity and location. You can usually opt out of this data collection, but companies are obscuring menus and buttons in the hope that they won’t adjust them right away.
Apple, Google, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft typically want to leave the default settings on to train their algorithms and catch bugs. This makes the product easier to use. However, unnecessary data sharing is not always in our best interests.
Therefore, for all technology products we use, it is important to peruse many menus, buttons, and switches to organize the data we share. This is a streamlined guide to many default settings that I and other technical writers constantly change.
Apple phone
For iPhone, users can open the Settings app and enter the privacy menu to make changes How they share data About the use and location of the app.
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[追跡]Select and[アプリに追跡の要求を許可する]Toggle off. This tells all apps not to share data with third parties for marketing purposes.
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Select Apple Advertising and turn off Personalized Ads to prevent Apple from using information about you to serve targeted ads on the App Store, Apple News, and Stocks.
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[分析と改善]Select and[iPhone分析の共有]Turn off to prevent the iPhone from sending device data to Apple to improve the product.
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Select Location Services, tap System Services, and switch off iPhone Analytics and Routing and Traffic to prevent your device from sharing geographic data with Apple and improve Apple Maps.
Google products
Google products, including Android phones and web services such as Google Search, YouTube, and Google Maps, are associated with your Google account, and the control panel for coordinating data management is on your website. myactivity.google.com..
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Set auto-delete to delete activity that is more than 3 months old in all three categories: web and app activity, location history, and YouTube history. In this way, instead of creating a permanent record for all searches, Google removes entries that are more than 90 days old. In the short term, you can make useful recommendations based on recent searches.
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The bonus tips for Android smartphones come from Ryne Hager, the editor of the technical blog.Android police: Newer versions of Android allow you to share an approximate location with your app instead of the exact location. For many apps, such as weather forecasting software, sharing approximate data is the way to go, and accurate geographic data should only be shared with software that needs to function properly, such as the map app.
Meta Facebook
The most important setting of meta is Privacy check tool In the settings menu. These are some important adjustments to prevent snooping by employers and marketers.
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Select “Who can see what you are sharing” and “Only me” for those who can access your friends list and the pages you follow to give your birthday Select “Friends” for those who can see it.
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For “How to find you on Facebook”, select “Only me” if you can search for you by email or phone number.
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“Ad settings on Facebook” switches off relationship status, employer, job title, and education. As such, marketers cannot serve targeted ads based on this information.
Amazon websites and devices
Amazon has some control over how information is shared through websites and products such as Alexa and Nest cameras. There are two settings that are highly recommended to be turned off.
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Amazon launched the Amazon Sidewalk last year. This is a program that allows new Amazon products to automatically share your Internet connection with other nearby devices. Critics say Sidewalk could open the door for malicious individuals to access people’s data.
To disable it on your Echo speaker, open the Amazon Alexa app and it’s in the bottom right corner of the screen.[その他]Tap. In the settings[アカウント設定]Tap and[Amazon Sidewalk]Select to switch Sidewalk to the off position.
For a ring camera, in the ring app, tap the three-line icon in the upper left and then[コントロールセンター]Tap. Tap Amazon Sidewalk and slide the button to the off position.
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By default, some shopping lists, such as items stored in your wishlist, are generally shared on the Amazon website, which may reveal information.visit Your list Create pages and make each shopping list private.
Microsoft windows
Windows PCs come with a number of data sharing settings that are turned on by default so that Microsoft, advertisers, and websites can learn more about us. A switch that turns these settings off opens the settings menu and[プライバシーとセキュリティ],[一般]Click in the order of to display.
However, Windows’ worst default settings may have nothing to do with privacy. Whenever the Wirecutter editor Kimber Streams tests a new laptop, one of the first steps is to open the sound menu and open the sound menu.[サウンドなし]Is to mute many annoying chimes that play when problems occur in Windows.
