Each person's search and browsing history is a true reflection of their inner life, where preferences, thoughts, and interests are clearly reflected. In a digital world where information becomes increasingly easily accessible, protecting our privacy on the internet becomes extremely important.
Clearing your search and browsing history is an important step to protect your privacy and avoid unwanted consequences. This not only keeps personal information from being exposed, but also prevents third parties from using that information for improper purposes.
However, deleting search and browsing history is not completely effective. Some data storage services or browsers may continue to record information even though you have deleted it on your personal device. Additionally, there are online activities that you cannot control or delete, such as how a particular website stores information about you.
From now on, it's important to prevent others from seeing and recording your search and browsing history in the first place. By using the privacy settings on your browsers and search services, and using privacy management tools, you can effectively increase the protection of your personal information.
More importantly, ensuring safety and privacy online is not only your right but also everyone's responsibility in an increasingly connected digital world.
Why you should delete your search history

As we noted above, your search and browsing history reveals a lot about you. This highly personal information is extremely valuable for monitoring purposes and influencing your behavior.
Targeted advertising
Every time you search the internet, you not only provide information to yourself, but also provide valuable data to advertising and analytics companies. This allows them to create more personalized advertising strategies, targeting you more effectively than ever before. Based on our analysis, your personal data could be worth up to $600 USD per year for advertising purposes alone.
Alphabet, Google's parent company, is currently worth up to 1.9 trillion USD, an impressive figure that they have created by providing services that are almost completely "free" but earn money. money from selling your search data to advertising and analytics companies.
Google has dominated not only online search but has also become an integral part of modern digital life. Searching for things on the internet is often called "googling", and Google's search services are the foundation for other services they offer such as Google Maps, Gmail, and Google Calendar.
Mass government surveillance
In 2013, Edward Snowden revealed the staggering scale and ambition of the US and UK mass surveillance programs, which operate on a "collect all" principle to gather data. data from almost everyone on the planet. In fact, little has changed since that event, and in many ways the situation is now worse.
And it's not just the NSA and its 5-Eyes, 9-Eyes, and 14-Eyes allies that track your search history. Almost all governments have mass surveillance systems in place, even if it's just laws requiring internet service providers (ISPs) to record customers' browsing history and store the data. This is where government agencies can access it for a certain period of time.
How to delete search history on Google

You can ask Google to delete your search history. However, it's hard to know whether they actually deleted it or not. However, this may prevent Google from using your past search history to target you directly with ads or sell it to third-party advertising and analytics companies. However, it is anyone's guess whether governments will still be able to access this "deleted" data.

How to delete Google search history on your desktop

The simplest way to delete your entire Google search history across all apps and devices is to use a desktop browser. To do this:
Go to myactivity.google.com/myactivity and sign in with your Google account. Here, you can review the information Google has stored about you. When you're ready, just click on the "Delete" option.
How to delete Google search history on mobile applications
On mobile, each individual Google app offers a feature that allows you to delete your search history. Depending on the specific app, deletion may only affect your search history on that app, or it may apply to all of your devices.
In some cases, when you delete, you'll be taken to the "My Google Activity" page, where you can manage and clear your search history for all Google apps and services that you use.
How to delete search history in Play Store
When you clear your Google Play Store search history, it only applies to the search history on the Play Store app on your current device.
To do this, open the Play Store app on your Android device or Chromebook. Then, tap your profile picture and go to Settings → General → Account and Device Preferences → Clear Device Search History.
How to delete YouTube search history
When you clear your YouTube search history, it only applies to your YouTube search history across all your apps and devices.
To do this on Android, iOS, and iPadOS, open the YouTube app and tap your profile picture, then select Settings → Manage all history → Save your YouTube history → Turn off.
How to delete search history on Google Maps
On Android, iOS, and iPadOS, you can clear your map history on the Google Maps app by opening the app and tapping your profile picture, then selecting Settings → Map History → Clear → Delete all (or choose any time period you want). From here, you can also tap the Controls tab to manage your Google search history across all apps.
How to clear your browser search history
Of course, it's not just Google and your government, there may be other reasons you want to keep your search history private. Deleting your browser search history can prevent friends, family, and co-workers with physical access to your device from seeing what you've done online.

In this section, we will see how to clear your search history in some popular browsers across different platforms. However, please note that like using incognito/private mode, deleting your browser history does not prevent anyone on the Internet from viewing your search history, e.g. ISP or websites you visit.
How to delete search history on Chrome
On your desktop, open Chrome and go to ☰ → Clear browsing history → select All time from the drop-down menu (or whatever interval you prefer) → Clear data.
On Android, open the Chrome app and tap ⋮ → Clear browsing data → select Every time from the drop-down menu (or any interval you prefer) → Clear data.
On your iPhone or iPad, open the Chrome app and go to… → History → Clear browsing data… → select All time from the drop-down menu (or whatever interval you prefer) → Clear browsing data.
You cannot delete your search history
You can ask Google to delete your search history from Google apps, and you can also delete any search history stored locally on your device. However, your ISP can see every website you visit online, and almost all ISPs record this information (in many countries, they are required to do so by law).
In some districts (such as the US), ISPs are allowed to sell customer data to advertisers. In almost every country, they will hand over data upon request by law enforcement or government agencies.
No ISP will delete your browsing history just because you ask, so there's not much you can do with the data you already have. However, from now on, you can prevent your ISP from seeing what you do by subscribing to a VPN service like RICE VPN.
A VPN routes the Internet connection from your device to a VPN server run by a commercial VPN service like VPN RICE. The connection between your device and the VPN server is securely encrypted so that no one sitting between your device and the VPN server can view the content of your data.
Final:
Asking online services like Google to delete your search history is perhaps an important step in protecting your privacy. However, it's much better to use apps and services that don't collect your search history in the first place.
For example, you can use the RICE VPN app. When searching for emails in VPN RICE, events in VPN Calendar RICE, or files in VPN RICE Drive, all searches are performed locally on your device. Just as their zero-access encryption ensures no one but you can access the data stored on RICE VPN's services, they also don't have access to your search history.
You can also use your browser's private or incognito mode. While this mode doesn't prevent anyone on the Internet from knowing what you do online, it does at least provide a layer of protection for your online privacy, especially when using shared devices. .
Using privacy-focused search engines is also an option. Tools like DuckDuckGo don't log your IP address or search history, helping you maintain your privacy online.
You can also block third-party cookies to prevent websites from tracking you across the Internet. If you must use Google, avoid searching while signed in to your Google Account and use a VPN so Google can't associate your IP address with your searches.
While it's not easy to stay private on the Internet, with some basic understanding and support from privacy-focused services like RICE VPN, you can avoid most tracking online.