How to Hide My Browsing History from Others on My Home Network?

There are several ways you can hide your browsing history. You can choose to use all these recommendations at once, at by doing that you will just increase the level of security. Hiding browsing history is recommended when you deal with confidential data.

Browsing history can be hidden by using privacy or incognito mode when browsing and deleting cookies. Besides this, it is also recommended to use VPN to hide browsing history from home users and others on the web. If you really want to go extra, you can use a special Privacy browser that guarantees maximum security.

To really make sure there is no track of your browsing history, it is also good advice not to sign to your Google account, since it is able to sync data across various devices. This will not hide browsing history by default – you will still have to do the aforementioned steps to hide it. 

Further down below, you will find explained the reasons why you should follow those steps if you want to keep your internet activities only to yourself. You should always be cautious about the websites you are visiting since some of them have really shady ways to trick you into storing your data, and ultimately your browsing history.

Go Incognito When Browsing

The most obvious and easiest way to hide your browsing history is to use incognito mode. Every browser available has this mode you can turn on. The only difference is the name. Some browsers call it incognito mode, others call it privacy mode, and so on. 

Although the name is different, the basic principle is the same. The browser will not record and store your browsing history, as it normally would in a regular browsing mode. Incognito mode is very convenient for home use when you are sharing your device with other people, as well as for public use when you are sharing the device with a lot of strangers. 

Incognito or privacy mode is blocking all first-party cookies from recording the websites you have visited. This means that those records will not be stored and available for later use.

Also, this mode is blocking third-party cookies which can track and analyze your activities once you leave the website you were browsing. 

Delete Cookies After You Finish Browsing

Some people think that deleting their search history is enough, but deleting cookies should be your ultimate concern. People usually tend to accept third-party cookies very easily without even realizing what they have done.

Each website asks you to accept the use of the cookies when you visit it for the first time. And this message continues to appear until you accept the cookies. Otherwise, it will stay at the top or the bottom of the screen annoying you. 

Third-party cookies are collecting and analyzing your behavior on the internet, and this basically means that they keep track of your browsing history. However, super cookies are something you should be worried about. 

Supercookies have a pretty self-explanatory name – they are more powerful than regular cookies. This type of cookies is commonly used on websites where you have a lot of video content, and they are able of recoding your path as you move from one browser to another. 

Deleting cookies can be done from the browser settings, but a faster and more effective way is to download a program like CCleaner, which will wipe out all cookies (including super cookies as well).

Try Using Special Browser

If you feel like standard browsers like Chrome, Opera, Safari, etc are not providing enough privacy settings, there is a way to ensure your activities on the internet will not be tracked. The option is called Privacy Browser. 

Privacy browser is based on Chrome, but with enhanced features of not keeping track of your activities at any time, or blocking cookies from tracking you. 

However, this is only convenient if you are dealing with some sensitive stuff and there is a strong reason why you don’t want to keep your browsing history available. Using this browser on a shared computer at home would definitely raise some concerns, so it may not be the best option. 

For home use, browsing in incognito mode and deleting cookies afterward should be protection that is good enough, unless your housemates are IT wonders and really keen to find out your browsing history.

Can You Hide Your Browsing History with VPN?

VPN can protect you, but only to a certain extent. VPN is designed in a way to alter your IP address so that it appears like you are accessing the internet from a location that is different from your actual, physical location. 

VPN is hiding your browsing history from others, meaning that they promise they do not store and track your browsing history in any way. They only transfer data through their servers, without keeping any track of it. 

However, if you are searching via regular browsing mode, and not incognito, the search history may still be available on the device you’ve been using. If you are using a Google account to connect all your devices and to keep track of your data across all of them, the search history may not be available if you have the VPN on.

Also, VPN cannot hide search history on the websites you have visited, since this is strictly connected to the local browser and the device itself. To remove this, you need to do it in the browser settings. 

Beware that internet service providers may still be able to see your search history, even if you are using VPN or incognito mode. You may hide your browsing history from people using your home network, but ISPs are able to do many things with our data, including seeing things you think you have hidden.