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Stop Your Browser From Spying on You: 5 Settings to Change Now Every browser you use collects data about where you go online, what you search for, and often your physical location. Much of this information is used to serve targeted ads, build profiles, or improve browser features—but not all of it you agree to. Recent updates across Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari have changed some default settings, making it worth taking a fresh look at what your browser is allowed to do. ...

Your Browser Knows Too Much: 5 Privacy Settings to Change Now Every time you open a browser, a quiet collection effort begins. Websites, advertisers, and analytics scripts log your searches, page visits, clicks, and even how long you linger on a paragraph. Most of this data flows to third parties you’ve never heard of, used to target ads and build profiles. If that thought makes you uncomfortable, you’re not alone. The good news: you can turn most of it off with a handful of setting changes. ...

Venmo Finally Fixes Its Privacy Problem After Eight Years If you’ve used Venmo for more than a few years, you probably know that every transaction you made was public by default. That meant anyone with your username could see who you paid, what you bought (via the description), and how much you sent. Security researchers and privacy advocates have called this out since the app launched in 2009. Now, eight years after the first major criticisms, Venmo is finally changing the default. ...

Gmail’s New AI Privacy Setting: Check It Before Your Data Gets Used If you use Gmail, there’s a privacy setting you might want to look at soon. A recent TechRepublic report notes that up to 1.8 billion Gmail users could be affected by a new option that controls how Google uses your email data for AI training. The setting is easy to find, but it’s not always obvious what it does or why you might want to change it. ...

How to Stop Google From Using Your Gmail for AI Training – Step-by-Step Privacy Fix If you use Gmail, there’s a good chance your emails are being used to train Google’s AI models. A recent report from TechRepublic highlights that the company’s default privacy settings may allow this without clear consent, and a lawsuit filed in early 2026 claims that the option is effectively hidden from users. With 1.8 billion active Gmail accounts, that’s a lot of personal correspondence feeding into machine-learning systems. ...

Chrome Quietly Removed Its Privacy Promise for On-Device AI: What It Means for You In early May 2026, several news outlets noticed something that had quietly changed in Google Chrome’s documentation. The privacy promise that on-device AI features do not send data to Google servers had been removed. If you use Chrome’s built-in AI tools—things like smart tab grouping, writing assistance, or image generation—you may now be sharing your browsing habits with Google more than you expected. ...