If you are a frequent user of the Facebook app, you may have noticed that the platform keeps track of the links you click on and the websites or pages you visit (it means it will allow you to revisit all the website links you have tapped on and visited inside the Facebook app). This is done to provide you with personalized ads and recommendations based on your interests and browsing habits (visited links). However, some users may not want Facebook to collect this type of information, or they may want to turn off their link history for privacy reasons. In this blog post, we will show you how to disable link history on Facebook and how to clear your existing data.
Why does Facebook collect link history?
Facebook collects link history to improve its services and to show you relevant content and ads. According to Facebook, link history helps them to:
- Understand what you are interested in and what you do on and off Facebook.
- Personalize your experience on Facebook (i.e., showing you more stories, groups, events, and ads that you might like).
- Improve the quality and relevance of ads that you see.
- Measure the effectiveness of ads and provide advertisers with insights about their audiences.
Note: Facebook also claims that they do not sell your link history or share it with anyone who can use it to identify you.
How to See Enabled Link History
To see enabled link history follow the below steps:
- Open the Facebook App.
- Tap on three-horizontal bars icon.
- Scroll and tap on Settings & Privacy.
- Tap Link history.
How to disable link history on Facebook?
You have two options to disable link history on the Facebook app. The first is to use the Facebook Settings option and the second is from the in-app browser. Here we are using an iPhone (15 Pro Max) to demonstrate all the steps. The procedures for Android phones are also almost similar.
Disable link history on Facebook Using the Facebook Settings Option
- Open the Facebook App.
- Tap on three-horizontal bars icon.
- Scroll and tap on Settings & Privacy.
- Tap Settings.
- Navigate to the Preferences section and tap Browser.
- Now disable the toggle switch next to the Allow link history.
- Finally tap on Don’t allow to confirm.
That’s it! You successfully disabled the link history on the Facebook app using the settings option.
Disable link history on Facebook Using the In-App Browser
- Tap and open any link within the Facebook app.
- Tap on the three-dots menu (on Android at the top right and on iOS bottom right).
- Now tap Go to settings.
- Now disable the toggle switch next to the Allow link history.
- Finally tap on Don’t allow to confirm.
That’s it! You successfully disabled the link history on the Facebook app using the sin-app browser option.
How to clear your link history on Facebook?
To delete your existing link history on Facebook, follow the below steps:
- Open the Facebook App.
- Tap on three-horizontal bars icon.
- Scroll and tap on Settings & Privacy.
- Tap Link history.
- Tap Clear all (top right).
This will remove or clear all the data that Facebook has stored about your off-Facebook activity. However, this will not affect the data that the websites and apps you visited have collected about you. You may need to contact them directly if you want to delete that data as well.
Conclusion
The Facebook app collects link history to provide you with a better and more personalized experience on their platform. However, some users may prefer to turn off or disable this feature or clear their data for privacy reasons. In this blog post, we showed you how to do both. We hope you found this blog post on disabling the link history on Facebook useful and helpful.
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