We can easily disable FloC in Google Chrome to avoid tracking. Google Chrome said goodbye to cookies and hello to FLoC, but this system does not convince many users and if you are part of this group we will teach you to disable it.
The arrival of FLoC was not without controversy, this unique Google system aims to be a substitute for third-party cookies in Chrome. What happens is that it is not a perfect system, much less, in fact, it has quite a few detractors among which are experts in cybersecurity.
The reason for having detractors is that they inherit several privacy problems from the classic cookies, such as informing websites and third parties about your browsing history, allows websites to track users through the internet and supposes an erroneous sample of the meaning of privacy on the web.
The only positive thing about the FloC system is that Google allows disabling it in the latest Chrome update. In addition, it can be disabled both for the desktop browser, although only if we are using the Canary version and in the mobile phone browser. The process is really simple and we are going to show you how to do it step by step.
Disable FloC in Chrome
In Android what you have to do is open the Google Chrome application and once there you have to display the hamburger menu by pressing the three points in the upper right area, a window will open and we will press the option that says “Settings”.
Within the configuration section, what interests us is the privacy submenu and therefore we will click there to continue with the process. In the privacy section we will have to press the option that says “Privacy Sandbox” and once there, mark uncheck the switch that says “Privacy Sandbox tests”. This would be it, although we recommend restarting the application.
On the desktop things change because we can only deactivate this option if we use Chrome Canary, which is the beta version of Google Chrome. If you are users of this version, we are going to show you how to deactivate FLoC. The first thing you have to do is write the following in the browser bar and it is important that you do not put the quotes: “chrome: // settings / privacySandbox”.
When writing this, a menu with several options will appear, the one that interests us is the one that says “Privacy Sandbox Settings 2” and that is in default mode, what we have to do is activate it by choosing “Enable” and after this we will have to restart the browser for the changes to take effect.
After having restarted, what you have to do is write the following address in the browser “chrome: // settings / privacySandbox” so that the next option that we have to deactivate appears. This option is enabled by default and all you have to do is change the state of the switch.
If we have done all this correctly, Google Chrome will use the usual cookies and we will not be part of the groups of people that use Chrome to track and benefit advertisers. It is true that deactivating these options are nothing more than band-aids to a system that already does not convince users. We hope that Google reconsiders and improves FloC.