Bitcoin Forum

Good day Boys and Girls.
I really don't know if this the right place to post this, but please forgive me if it's not.

A person's browser history tells a lot of Histories about the person, his interests and his routine, as well as other aspects of his life.
I was just going through my browser history today and it opened my eyes to so many things I had almost forgotten about myself, things I found really interesting in the past, but due to growth and evolution, I do not find them intriguing anymore, and being reminded of those things has its own special ways of showing you how much you've grown and advanced in your chosen field and also other areas of your life.

It's just like going through some old family photos, or group elementary, high school or college photos and you can't just help but smile because you've seen how much you've grown, how far you've gone towards achieving your goal and how close you are to you goals.

The reason for this thread is because I would love to share my experience about through my browser history way back to 2020 when I started this crypto Journey.
I remember I'd always stay up all night just doing researches about Bitcoin and how it works, how I can become successful through bitcoin, because I've been hearing about it and didn't really understand the modus operandi of Bitcoin. I was a total newbie without anyone to guide me through the process, so I'd always research and gather lots of fact about Bitcoin. It was through one of my random researchs that I learned about this forum,  on the 13th of July 2022 I registered an account but wasn't really contributing.
https://talkimg.com/images/2024/05/07/rKdAv.jpeg
https://talkimg.com/images/2024/05/07/rKuIH.jpeg
I spent months reading threads and learning more and gathering various types of knowledge about Bitcoin but I never contributed because I'm not the kinda person that likes to engage in online community discussions or arguments, the knowledge I was acquiring from here was enough for me and has been quite sufficient to guide me through my bitcoin journey.

Months after I registered the account, I left the forum for a while, while I focused on other forms of researchs about Bitcoin.
My main focus has always been about the Blockchain Technology. I've been pretty curious from day one to unfold all the potentials that Blockchain Tech has at its disposal and I've learnt quite much, and on my next thread here, I'll be sharing my findings so far about the Blockchain Tech to be discussed here, so it'll be an avenue for learning for me and others who also share the same curiosity and interest as i do.

So I bumped across something online that reminded me of the forum few weeks ago and I decided to revisit the Bitcointalk community and also decided to start interacting too...
I just got to remember and see just how much I've grown and evolved in my bitcoin journey, and even when I'm not yet gotten to my desired destination, I'm still proud of myself because i know I've come really far and I'm very close to achieving my set goal as a Bitcoiner.

You can not clean it because Google stored your data forever. Even your deleted web browsing history, emails, whatever, they can have terms that after 30 days of deletion, you will lose those documents forever and they will not support you to recover such deleted data.

However, on Google side, they store it and did you read about the lawsuit against Google, that they stored users' web surfing history even in Igconito mode?

If you are serious with privacy, do it at the start.

Firstly, I must commend your effort for sharing the beginning of your journey in Crypto and BTT. Secondly, I can't tell where this post fits, but I suggest you think about taking it to the Beginners and Help board to trigger replies from newbies who keep track of their browsing history.

Also, seeing that you still have all your crypto history on your browser is quite surprising. You should have known that companies sell customer data and even keep it for other reasons. I personally clear my browsing history and even wipe out password related data occasionally. Keeping all history makes searching faster, but don't choose it over privacy.

Thx for the tip, did the same and just realized it's been a while since I downloaded fury porn, only 10 hits this month!

The Bitcoin journey is one journey of my life I find so interesting I moved from one stage to the other, I remembered saving for 7 months as a student just to invest on Bitcoin it was hard and difficult those times but I'm happy I went through all those stages.

I joined Bitcointalk December 2021 but I never knew what to contribute because I had little or no knowledge of Bitcoin so I lift and I went to do more research about Bitcoin, I went to seminars in other to know more about Bitcoin.
However it was in this forum I got all the knowledge I needed about Bitcointalk and also how to express myself.
This forum helped me also in being able to create intelligent speech, my Bitcoin journey was the best part of my life and I cherish every stage I went through.  

Hmmm, I think you don't get the main point of OP post, as he is not complaining about Google history, or that there are ways to store your data, while he is just making a thread to share his experience and time in the crypto industry and how he gets to know about his account on BTT which he forgot but came to know about when he visited his history page. Although the title of the post is a definitely giving the vibe that the OP will talk against browser history. But nah OP has different plans haha.

Well, you are also right in your position. Speaking of Incognito mode, I don't read any policies but I already knew they are storing our historical data from that site too. Because if we can see the incognito history by ourselves then why they can't. And you are right about the privacy step that we should keep it in mind from the start and use tools and browsers accordingly.

It looks like OP is learning crypto and at the same time politics. It's no longer unusual because BTC or crypto is related to politics. There is no way you can set aside politics regarding crypto because the world is governed by how much power a country has regarding money.

Could it be critical if Google identifies you as a Bitcoiner who is aware of the politics going on between China vs the US and Ukraine war? It probably depends on what you are posting online. Using the TOR browser is an option.

Hiding yourself online is somewhat not that give out that 100% assurance that you are safe or having that privacy on which we do know or something casual that these companies are really that tracking us
which it turns out that we do believe that it would really be just that for the sake of tracking out on what are those peoples interest and be bombarded up by tons of ads on which relating on what you have searched online.
As long you arent that leaking out those important informations about your identity or personal things then i dont really see that much for this to be a big issue or something that you should really be in concern.

Also, i would really be saying that even if people would really be thinking up about privacy or anonymity but it wont really be resulting that they would really be changing up on using up TOR on this case.
They wont care about using up Chrome because user experience is much really that different.  :)

You have the patience to save and not clean the browser history, for me it's like I clean it annually for a fresh start every year, but if I look or remember the old history on my old phone, it's the same as you, year 2017 at first I started to get interested in bitcoin and I read only articles about btc every time I did research on google. nothing, it's just fun to remember, you also have a point, sometimes we can better recognize what type of person an individual is based on what we can see in their browser history.

I agree it’s probably one of the most private things in life and many people would not be very keen on sharing their browser history.

I too like reminiscing about the past and just see how much I have changed as a person. It’s good to reflect no matter at what stage of your life you have changed.

It would be best if you had shared what you have learned to us and how you were as a beginner and how would you advise beginners now. Since you have grown, we’d be interested to heard what were these growths.

If you go through the browser history of someone and you see some kind of disturbing searches in the browser history of that person, search history like a search to find out a method to steal cryptocurrency for example, it should be a warning to be careful of such persons.

I had this idea that incognito was safer, Can I ask if this data is accessible to any other person asides google? if not, does it not mean then that incognito mode is still safe, because asides google and you, no one else can access it.

The sooner we realize that everything we do online leaves a trail, the more conscious we will be about our privacy. For privacy, use TOR when browsing on the internet. It’s not today news that tech companies sell user data to other companies. Google has been accused of this in the past. See here:  Topic: {Beware}: Google accused of giving personal data to advertisers (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5182246.msg52373905#msg52373905)

As far as I know, the browsing history loads the browser too much, which makes it work slower. But preserving history for four years is something like a Darwin Award. Having saved all its cookies and cache, the browser was supposed to smoke from the stress of the next page load. But you might think that the OP hasn’t touched this browser for several years. Then yes, going back to history is indeed nostalgic.

Who saves browser history nowadays? People are even scared to browse in incognito but yeah our browser history can shed a light on our past just like the Facebook memories does but it's highly recommended to clear the browsing history as people sometimes saves their password and have sensitive information in the laptop/computer which could be at the risk of being compromised.

I'll do one up on the topic title, your online activity tells pretty much everything about your real life. Websites which track us through cookies that track our actions on other sites and the data we give them ourselves, can tell everything about us. For example, they can sell that data to politicians as it can accurately predict which percentage of people will vote for or against a service. Online trackers have a better idea of our tastes and interests than we do.

I know this isn't a thread on privacy, but it's a reminder to limit the access you give to your device as much as possible. Disable all non essential cookies and clear your cache often.

If you want to be a professional by the way of being a bitcoiner, then you have to realized that you will need to make use of your wallet on airgapped device, which has no connection to the internet for more safety, one also have to maintain a privacy level whereby his device is not made available or opened for the public to have access, as well as avoiding the use of unsolicited links online.

I was surprised to see the history, the previous history is still in his device. The time I put into cryptocurrency seems like you know a lot or are well-educated. I am looking forward to seeing your blockchain expertise and results so far, I hope to share. All the best to you to reach your destination as a bitcoin. Good for you since you are bringing up politics and crypto, as I think crypto and politics are interdependent.

Basically i don't keep my browsing history for too long because it slows down the effectiveness of the browser so after leaving my browsing history for like a week or two I do clear everything off including my passwords, cookies and cache and when I do that the browser becomes fast again. Don't think there's any need to leave the numerous past browsing history, if you open a page and you wish to access it later on in the future bookmarking it is the best way or to just save the page and access it whenever you want to instead of leaving the browsing history without clearing them off.

Sometimes, you might travel to a different state and you'd receive a text message to vote for a particular candidate in the state election and you'd be like who knows I'm here and how was my phone number gotten?

Surprised right? Google steals your data and sells it to big corporations and the truth is we don't know how much data they can collect and what they can do with it. If you really value your privacy, use privacy tools like Tor browser and Tails OS on your device.

Op, great job you have done and this reminds me about people who do sell off their phones and other gadgets with having to format it completely riding it off every data from it system storage. People we sell our phone to could through our browser history unknown to us get in vital informations about us and they could use it for phishing scams against us and if we're unlucky we could end up losing money to them. And you be wondering how do this scammer got to know so much about me that he/she was able to get to me. ???

This is why I am running Lineage OS on my phone, to stay out of google reach, this open-sourcei  Android ROM comes with zero Google service and it is also one of the most secured ROMs out there, your data your rules.

Many people do like what Google is doing, not losing access to their data is why they choose Google, and in this case Google is doing it right, if you lost your phone your data is not lost, you will have access to it when you link your Google account again.

---

I remember when I sold my old phone years ago, I had to install an CM ROM on the phone in fear of the new buyer having access to my browser history, I felt like formatting the phone memory isn't enough for me, now I don't really care that much, because everything about crypto isn't available on my phone and computer anymore, I now have a hardware wallet but still, browser history has some big pictures about the owner.

---

My advice is for everyone to go pro by getting an air-gapped device, no need for an internet connection and there is no room for backing anything up into the cloud either, for crypto wise you will be save this way.

I can hardly find my browse histories older than a year not because I use to delete/clear them but because I hardly use a device for a complete year. I don't know if these histories are safe in the browser or email address but if it is former, I can't access them again after changing of device but if it is later, they can possibly be accessed.

Yes, it can tell more about someone's on online but why should we be checking others browsing history without their consent? I think it's totally wrong. By the way, some people are different in real life and online.


I don't think these history is available to a third party but Google can always grants access to a third party if the need arise. I remember some times ago in my side here when a user's browse history was brought up during investigation. It was a case of terrorism and the law enforcement agencies recover all their browse histories both cleared and unclear ones, calls histories too in order to reach the root of the case but luckily, the suspects were later discovered innocent and were freed after several months of detention. Your privacy is not absolutely guaranteed as far as internet or technology rather is concerned.

Just a simple setting up your web browser to delete all browsing history each time you close it will make a huge difference.
Some browsers like Tor don't even store anything by default, but it's not that hard to do something similar for Firefox, Chrome and other browsers.
I would also avoid using any crypto browser web wallets if possible.

I just got to find out that it doesn't really change anything, after I saw this thread I went to delete all my browser history on chrome as I was totally not interested in any history related stuff, so I took my time to clear all history.

To my greatest surprise, I found the "My Google Activity" button and clicked on it, I saw that even with my browser history being cleared there are over 8,700 past activities stored in the Google activity. Which means that no matter how much you clear your browser history you will still find it hard to see that it's clean.

No wonder a lot of reputable forum users always say they browse the internet with duckduckgo instead of Google as Google is the opposite of privacy. Maybe from now I will take this into account and start practicing using duckduckgo instead of Google.

The reason why Google Chrome made availability for the incognito 🥸 Mode is for users who are quite considerate about the privacy and anonymity of their browser history, to avoid having Google save your current activities on the browser, then using thr incognito mode is so people like you, well of course you generally have a problem with google.

surfing using incognito mode will only prevent the browser from saving history, it does not increase any privacy, because search engines and operators can see the user's activities. so an option that users can use to increase their privacy is by using the tor network. maybe for ordinary users they will be confused when using this, but online there are many tutorials using this network, so if users want to increase their privacy they can use the available tor network.

You are right seeing this post just made me checked my history and truly one can tell everything about someone by just seeing his or her browsing history, from my browsing history one can tell I love researching about every new thing I come across with and also how interested I am in cryptocurrency.
This topic of yours is very interesting and I think when trying to know about a friend all I need to do is go through his or her browsing history and know somethings about him or her.

Your very right selling old phones and gadgets can be very risky especially for those that have saved a lot of passwords on them like I do, if you sell to the wrong persons he can take advantage of it and wipe you of some funds, and also our Browsing history shows a lot about our preferences and what we like and many companies are interested in this data, just a while ago since I started reading about how to get a virtual is number you can use for calls, I started getting adverts about different applications that offer that services and now after reading thsi topic im sure that is because of my recent search in that niche, meaning that our data isn't safe in the hands of any company and we should also try to Browse securely and incognito.

Even if one needs/wants to sell their old gadgets, it's always important to factory reset the devices/gadgets in order to wipe off all your information from the device for the new owner to not be able to access any of your information or files.

This can also be done when you want to secure history privacy. but if what happens is losing the device, then this situation will not be possible.
in other cases when the device is damaged and cannot be accessed. we have to take it to a service center for repairs. and it could also be risky for you to store passwords or important information on the device.

I routinely reset my browser history every month. and most importantly, don't save the password which is usually recommended by the device to make it easier to access devices such as smartphones. I know it's risky and I won't do it.

Most gadgets now have measures set in place to tackle situations such as one losing his device to avoid invaders getting hold of their information.
People can not remotely access their phones, Google accounts information and data using another device and from other locations, like options to track, lock or factory reset devices that has your Google account registered in them, with such thing in place, I doubt it'll be impossible for intruders to access your information whenever you lose your phone.

And then again, every device has its built in security system that allows only owner of the phone and those he grants access to have access to the phone because they're the only persons that has access to the security keys, pin or password to unlock and access the phone.

And if peradventure the phone gets misplaced or stolen, the new person in possession of the phone would require the owners password to unlock the phone and access any information, and if he eventually decides to bypass the password, he'll be wiping off all the data in device alongside the password or pin, whixh still means your informations are safe.