Read More: Why Bother Protecting Your Social Media Apps

Sounds so simple, but some users would like this option to be more obvious; however, learn more about this new feature and how it works.

What Brought This About?
Facebook faced plenty of backlash over the Cambridge Analytica scandal that revealed the company was harvesting the personal information of users, and selling the information to third-party companies so specific ads could be targeted to users that search for products or services.

Zuckerberg admitted at the company’s recent F8 conference that, by default, Facebook still tracks the activity of users and sends them ads connected to the information they search for. In the immediate future, users will be able to stop this practice with a new feature.

How Can Users Change This?
Supposedly the new feature will be similar to how you clear cookies and history in your web browser. Facebook’s feature will allow you to view your browsing history on the site and clear it, including what you’ve clicked on, app history, websites you’ve visited, and more.

Essentially, you’ll be able to choose to not have this information stored in your account. But, Zuckerberg warns that turning off function will eliminate some of your preferences the same way deleting cookies does, which will require you to sign onto sites again since the information in any auto-fill forms will be gone.

The Effect This Could Have
The move could bring many users back to Facebook because the will have the power to not have their preferences tracked. Zuckerberg added that the new privacy control will be called Clear History. He warned it would take the company about 3 years to become more proactive at policing content, which means you might still see content that doesn’t fit your preferences if you choose to keep your data tracking intact.

However, deleting your browsing history will result in the company removing identifying information so a log of sites and apps you’ve used won’t be connected to your account, which is a step toward more privacy.

Read More: Deactivating vs. Deleting Your Facebook Account

To help keep you safe and secure while connecting with friends and family across the world, check out these smart social media tips.

Begin Here… A Simple Privacy Checkup
Facebook has a convenient feature built into their website known as ‘Privacy Checkup’; it can be accessed by clicking on the question mark bubble in the upper right-hand corner of the screen – adjacent to the ‘logout’ drop-down menu. In 3 easy steps, you can check who sees your posts, what external apps have access to your data, and what personal information shows up on your profile.

Lock Down Your Timeline and Tagging
A big tip: consider controlling the type of content that’s posted on your timeline, along with what posts you’re tagged in. To access these settings, select the drop-down arrow in the upper right-hand corner of the Facebook site, select the ‘Settings’ option, then select the ‘Timeline and Tagging’ option. Here you can finetune who are allowed to post content on your wall and if you prefer to be tagged in posts or not.

Reconsider That Selfie
A general rule to consider, despite your Facebook privacy settings, is to treat everything you post as though anyone could view it. Remember, sharing something with your friends doesn’t mean they can’t take that info and redistribute it elsewhere.

Two-Factor Authentication is Painless
An easy way to make your Facebook account more secure is to set up two-factor authentication. This option can be found under Facebook Settings and then ‘Security and Login.’ Enabling this option means that anyone attempting to log in to your account (including yourself), will be prompted to enter not only a password but also a one time code that’s sent via SMS text message or generated from the Facebook mobile application. Even if a potential intruder has your passcode, they won’t be able to gain access without your specific, personal device containing the one-time passcode.

Clamp Down on Security Overall
Besides accessing your account from the web, another possible breach is if someone gains physical access to your phone. If you want to take your security even further, you can add a secondary passcode to your social apps by using dfndr security, which has a social guardian feature. Choose which social apps you wish to protect, create a complicated passcode, and you’ll be set. Should your phone land in the wrong hands, your social media connections will be inaccessible.

Facebook is one of the greatest tech inventions to grace society, and with these tips, you’ll have the freedom to use its benefits to the fullest.

When it comes down to your personal life, the addition of encryption is equal to added privacy and protection. Signal isn’t the only option on the market either – your PC or Mac most likely uses a level of encryption to protect your data behind a secure login password. When an application encrypts something, it translates into a secure format that can only be read by the recipient who has the key. If you’ve ever played with a spy decoder ring as a child, think of encryption as similar but with a grown-up twist where the information is a bit more precious and a lot more digital.

Read More: Should You Get a VPN App for Your Android?

The team at Signal doesn’t just help keep third-party apps safe such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, they also have their own app, Signal, that allows two parties to communicate securely with each other. But, how else can we use encryption to protect ourselves when surfing the web? Securing our messages is an excellent way to start, but we can take everything just a step further.

For maximum privacy and security, we can protect all of our online activities using similar end-to-end encryption. If you’ve ever used public Wi-Fi or shared a network with someone else, you will understand the desire to keep away others from peeping at your data. In these scenarios, this is where the powers of VPNs can come into play.

A VPN, virtual private network, allows you to browse the web on any of your devices without the worry of any information being intercepted. For example, accessing your online banking information at a local cafe could be a risky decision, but with a VPN you can know your traffic is encrypted from your computer all the way to the bank.

You might be thinking this sounds great, but how do I get started? For beginners, you can download an application for your smartphone when browsing for added privacy protection. A solution such as dfndr vpn allows you to connect to a secure VPN with a single touch, encrypt your sensitive data, and also help you block malicious sites.

Ensuring that your data remains encrypted and secure is an essential part of your digital life. Always consider what you’re sending online, and how you’re sending it in public spaces. A VPN can solve that worry.

The cleaner gets rid of images, video, audio, and messages that WhatsApp continues to store long after you don’t need them anymore. You can also choose which files, and from which dates, to delete so that you don’t have to clear each one individually. whatsapp cleaner will always clear out your unnecessary WhatsApp files; but if too many files are a real problem for you, you might also want to check out these cleaning solutions below, too.

Read More: WhatsApp Ending Support for Windows Phone 7 Devices

How to Clear Your Chats

1. Open WhatsApp and tap on the menu button.

1. Click on “Settings.”

1. Navigate to “Chats and calls.”

1. Click on “Delete all chats/Clear all chats.”

How to Delete Your Chats

1. Open WhatsApp and tap on the menu button.

1. Click on “Settings.”

1. Navigate to “Chats and calls.”

1. Click on “Delete all chats/Clear all chats.”

How to Copy Your Files to Your Computer

If you want to keep files but don’t want them all to be stored on your phone, try this method for transferring your files to your computer.

1. Connect your phone to your computer.

1. On your computer enable “Developer Options” and “USB debugging.”

1. Next, navigate to your phone’s internal storage on your computer.

1. Click on “WhatsApp folder.”

1. Click on “Media.”

1. Copy the files you want to keep from your Media folder. Look for content in WhatsApp Images, WhatsApp Audio, WhatsApp Documents, and WhatsApp Video.

1. Make a new “WhatsApp” folder on your computer.

WhatsApp can eat up a lot of your device’s storage space. However, using the whatsapp cleaner and taking a few of the precautions listed here can free up space for WhatsApp to continue functioning well. It will also help to improve your device’s overall performance by freeing up space and memory on your Android phone. Not to mention keeping your worldwide connections trouble free.

How the Snapchat Stories Update Works
In this introductory video, Snapchat details how to go about it. After swiping over to your Stories, you can plug anything you’d like to see (Snapchat suggests sports games, local bars, or puppies), and Snapchat will pull up the public Story corresponding to it. It may seem like more of the same from Snapchat — How does this differ from their offering already? — but it’s actually a huge step forward. It differentiates them from sites that have begun to copy their “My Story” model, such as Instagram and Facebook.

Read More: Stay on Top of Your Vacation Plans with These Android Apps

Classic Snapchat stories are done by your friends and will show you what they did throughout the day, and it’s that model that both Instagram and Facebook picked up on. Snapchat Stories (of the searchable variety) are a whole different beast. Instead of focusing on a person’s individual experience,  Snapchat Stories can capture a time or event from a group perspective.

A sports event may be interesting to watch on TV, but with a Snapchat Story curated by multiple individuals, the experience becomes more diverse and immersive. Maybe someone right next to the hoop captures a particularly impressive shot, while someone else captures the crowd’s reaction, and a third person catches a man spilling his soda as he stands up to cheer. This is the sort of moment no individual person could capture, and it can be delivered to you in nearly real time.

Snapchat uses a few techniques to sort its publicly-posted Stories into their individual feeds. After you submit a Story publicly, Snapchat scours it for text in the captions, as well as location information, to try to sort it into the appropriate Story. It can also use computer learning to recognize common shapes in a picture. Using machine vision and learning, artificial intelligence is able to recognize the shape of a puppy and place it within the puppy Story.

Read More: Top 3 Reasons Your Android Might Be Crashing

Mybucketz
Use this app to not only aggregate your different social media feeds but to place friends and individuals that you follow into neatly organized “buckets.” These can include categories such as “friends,” “family,” “colleagues,” and so on. Besides that, you can search for posts among your social networks by using keywords to find exactly what you’re looking for.

Snowball
This is an Android app that is backed by Google Ventures, so you know it’s a good one! It supports an abundance of apps, such as SMS, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Twitter, WeChat, Slack, and Google Hangouts. The app brings all of your mobile messages to one place, making it easy to stay on top of it all. Whenever you have a new message, a “snowball” will pop up with a floating yeti symbol, ensuring that you can’t miss a note! While in most cases you can’t send responses through Snowball (you have to jump to the respective app most times), it’s still a great way to monitor your messages without constant toggling.

Cloze
This is a social media aggregation and curation tool that can be used on an Android mobile app as well as on your web browser. This app is similar to others in the fact that it combines feeds from across your social media spectrum, but it also has some features that set it apart. First, it allows you to choose which people that you follow or are friends with who are most important to you, making your feed more personalized and relevant. Then, it learns who’s important to you and organizes your feed based on those preferences, reducing clutter so you really only see what you want to.

Read More: New Social Media Platforms: What’s Next After Facebook?

Nonetheless, if you’re looking for a new dating app to test out, the following are 5 niche dating apps that you’ve likely never heard of, but will definitely want to try. One of these apps might just be the key you needed for a great match.

1. Hater

Yes, you read that correctly. Hater takes a spin on traditional dating apps by pairing users who hate the same things. If you’ve been harboring a long-time hatred for slow walkers, long lines, or black coffee, swipe to discover your next love connection (or, just someone to complain with).

2. Bristlr

Who doesn’t love a great beard? Bristlr will help you find your next bearded lover, as the platform is only open to users who either have beards or just really love them. If you fall under either category, you’ll want to check this one out.

3. Sizzl

If you’re a lover of all things bacon, you’ll want to try Sizzl. This is a niche dating app for — you guessed it — bacon lovers. Answer questions such as: “Do you prefer your bacon crispy or chewy?” or “Pork or turkey bacon?” Discover your next love over the sizzle and pop of a frying pan.

4. SaladMatch

Continuing with the food theme, New York-based salad lovers may be interested in SaladMatch. This app was made by the salad chain, Just Salad, and it pairs you with other salad lovers in your area. Heading out of the office for a quick lunch break? Swipe to find others heading to Just Salad!

5. Tall Friends

As you may have guessed by the name, Tall Friends is a dating app for those of us too long-legged to bother with the important, but awkward, “So, how tall are you?” question on Tinder.

Privacy Concerns
Sure, cookies can improve your experience while browsing websites, but website disclosures aren’t always very clear when they give that statement. Their definition of improving your browsing experience may be quite different from yours. Websites like you to leave cookies enabled because they can track you, display more relevant ads (brought to you by tracking), and follow you.

Read More: Can Your Android Apps Actually Leak Memory?

Safety: You May Be More at Risk Than You Realize
The information above is accurate, but that was with trustworthy places like Amazon or Google in mind. Imagine the same kind of power but in more malicious hands. That’s right, there are plenty of malicious websites out there that prey off your information. Cookies can potentially be a dangerous first step that will allow hackers to gain access to your personal data.

Your Data is Hiding Within Cookies
There’s a lot of data hiding within cookies and there are people out there who can retrieve the data and utilize it to do you harm. They could pull saved passwords and other precious information and use it against you to access anything you can imagine.

Transient Cookies Stay on Your Devices
From your computer to your smartphone, transient cookies are stored temporarily on your device in order to function properly. They’re supposed to be deleted when you close your browsing session, but in the wrong hands, they could potentially do harm on your device while they’re on there, or perhaps not even leave your device.

Preferences, Logins, and Other Information Are Being Stored
Maybe you like not having to log in to websites or worry about settings, but your data is being stored and analyzed by all corners of the Internet. It’s best not to leave your preferences available and vulnerable to the dark corners of the Internet for a slight bit of convenience.

When you then visit the social networking app or the Facebook website, you’ll receive ads targeted to your browsing preferences. That might already be a little too Big Brother for some users. But here’s the kicker: Facebook also sends out ads to Internet users who don’t even have Facebook accounts. How? The ads are generated based on the websites users browse.

Read More: How to Use the Facebook App Like a Pro

The company suggests that they have the ads under control. They say that they only send out ads that aren’t deceptive and don’t have sound, so the Facebook-controlled ads are arguably less intrusive than other ads. Plus, the company says, if you’re going to see ads anyway, you might as well see something you’re interested in seeing. But, regardless of Facebook’s justification, some users still don’t want to be tracked or marketed to by Facebook. The following will tell you how to turn off the ad tracking once and for all.

For Facebook Users

In the left-hand side of your settings bar, click on “Ads.” There, you will see a column that says, “Ads based on my preferences.” Here, you can click on “Visit ad preferences.” There, you can limit or disable browsing-tracking and tailor your ads.

For Non-Facebook Users

If you’re not a Facebook user, you can stop ad tracking by setting certain preferences on your phone. On your desktop browser, you can opt out of ads entirely by signing up with the Digital Advertising Alliance, a service that lets you opt out of browsing-tracking altogether. Make sure to do this on every browser that you use.

On your phone, though, you can also turn off tracking. To do it, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to “Settings.”
2. There, click on “Google” and then “Ads.”
3. There, choose “Opt out of interest-based ads.”

Now, Facebook and other tracking services won’t keep track of your browsing! Unfortunately, Facebook users can’t be entirely private online or completely opt out of the social media network selling their information to other companies. If you don’t want to deal with online tracking or targeted ads, then you’ll have to avoid Facebook — and really, any online activity — all together.

Read More: How to Use WhatsApp’s Version of Snapchat

How to Delete Your Entire Chat History

Note: If you’re choosing this option, be aware that most of your messages won’t be saved.  

1. Navigate to WhatsApp’s “Settings” and then click on “Media Settings.”
2. From there, scroll to the bottom of your screen. There, you’ll find two options: “Delete all conversations” and “Clear all conversations.”
3. If you want to delete messages and conversations, click on “Delete all conversations.” If you choose this option, your chats will still be available in your “Chats” list.
4. If you want to delete messages but keep your conversations, click on “Clear all conversations.” Your conversations will still be on your “Chats” list.

How to Delete an Individual or Group Chat

1. Navigate to “Chats” on the WhatsApp main page.
2. Tap and hold the chat that you want to delete, or, if you want to delete many chats, you can click on “Select More” on the right-hand side of the screen and tap on multiple chat rows that you want to be eliminated.
3. Once you’ve selected the chat or chats you want to be deleted, click “Delete” at the bottom of the right-hand side of your screen.
4. Click “Delete chat” to confirm your request.

WhatsApp files can accumulate quickly, as the app’s settings program it to save nearly everything. To save space on your Android, you should regularly use WhatsApp Cleaner and one of these above methods to eliminate files you don’t need anymore.