Tracking, cookies and what follows you around
The mechanics of online tracking, the settings that reduce it, and an honest account of the tools sold as privacy solutions.
Something you looked at once follows you around for a fortnight, and a site you have never visited somehow knows you were shopping for a mattress. That is not coincidence and it is not your phone listening. It is cookies, tracking pixels and browser fingerprinting, which are both more mundane and more thorough than the rumours about them, and the settings that genuinely reduce them are not the ones most often recommended.
Start with how tracking is actually carried out, because the countermeasures only make sense once you know which of the three techniques you are up against. Then find out what pressing reject all on a cookie banner really does, which is a good deal narrower than the button suggests. If you are considering paying for protection, read what a VPN does and the three things it cannot do before you subscribe.
That last point matters most on a hotel or cafe connection, where the risk has changed a lot in recent years and most of the old advice about public wifi no longer describes the actual danger.
Your internet provider sits underneath all of this and sees which sites you reach, whatever the browser does. How long ISPs keep your browsing history sets out what US, UK, EU and Australian law makes them keep, and for how long.
Cookies run on a clock the site and your browser set between them. How long cookies last covers the 400 day cap in Chrome and Firefox, Safari's seven day and one day limits, and why a cookie a site keeps renewing may never expire.
Google keeps its own record of what you search, on a clock most people never set. How long Google keeps your search history explains the 3, 18 and 36 month auto-delete options, why accounts older than June 2020 often keep everything, and what deleting really takes.
Articles in this hub
- How web tracking works: cookies, pixels and fingerprintsThe four mechanisms that follow you across sites, why deleting cookies stopped being enough, and the settings that actually reduce it.
- Cookie banners: what reject all actually doesWhy every site asks, what the choices really control, the dark patterns to watch for, and whether rejecting changes anything at all.
- What a VPN does, and the three things it cannot doAn honest account of VPNs: what the encryption protects, who you are trusting instead, when one is genuinely useful, and the marketing claims to ignore.
- Public wifi in 2026: what is still risky and what is notHow the risk on cafe and airport wifi has changed, the attacks that still work, and the two settings that matter more than any VPN subscription.
- Ad blockers and content blockers: what they really changeHow blockers work, the difference between blocking ads and blocking tracking, what breaks, and the trade offs worth knowing before you install one.
- What private browsing actually hides, and from whomPrivate and incognito windows explained precisely: what they delete, who can still see your activity, and the situations where they genuinely help.
- How long do ISPs keep your browsing history?What US, UK, EU and Australian law makes internet providers keep, for how long, why the 12 month figure misleads, and what the FTC found providers really log.
- How long do cookies last?The 400 day cap in Chrome and Firefox, Safari's seven day and one day limits, why policies still say two years, and what the CNIL and ICO allow.
- How long does Google keep your search history?Until you delete it, unless auto-delete is on: the 3, 18 and 36 month settings, why accounts older than June 2020 keep everything, and what deleting really takes.