Ads Following You Around? Here’s How You Can Stop Them

I looked for a nice wallet for my husband’s birthday but then decided to buy it later. An hour later, I’m showing him something on a blog and that same wallet is in the adverts. My husband smiled at me. He got the hint! Dang it! That advert ruined my surprise.

If you’re also annoyed by ads following you around everywhere, here’s how you can stop them. I learned my lesson after the surprise was ruined. Make sure you follow these steps right away so yours isn’t.

How to avoid being followed by advertisers

You can’t exactly stop being followed, but you can avoid being targeted to a certain extent. Here’s what you can do.

Delete cookies

Cookies will save your preferences and generally make things easier for you if you visit a website multiple times. But they will also help advertisers track you. You can go to the browser settings and disable cookies but then there are certain websites that will not open if you’ve disabled the cookies. The best thing to do is delete cookies after closing the session.

Go incognito

When you use incognito or privacy mode on your browser, it automatically deletes the cookies that are stored in a temporary folder. This means you don’t have to manually delete the cookies each time you exit.

Opt out

You can simply opt out of the advertising networks. Here’s a consumer’s choice page that checks the cookies on your system and finds the advertisers that have been targeting you. You can opt out of all of them by clicking on the entries in the Opt Out column.

Use browser extensions

There are some extensions that will block ads and prevent websites from storing cookies on your device. However, when you use an ad blocker, some websites might not be happy in providing services to you and may ask you to disable the extension.
Private Internet Access also features MACE ad blocking technology, allowing you to experience the web without ads.

Use a secure browser

Browsers such as Tor don’t track your activities and don’t store cookies on your device. If you don’t want any advertisers to track you, use a secure browser.

In essence, if you keep your browsing activities private, advertising networks will not be able to follow you around. Using any of the methods above will help you avoid being targeted.