How to disable FLoC in Google Chrome

Google’s Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) has received a lot of attention since the company announced the standard earlier this year. Major browser manufacturers such as Firefox, Edge, Safari, Brave, and Vivaldi have shown no interest in Google’s approach to FLoC, and WordPress has announced that it will block FLoC on its websites. Google has added an option for users to opt out. Here’s how to disable FLoC in Chrome:

Disable FLoC in Google Chrome (2021)

To better understand FLoC and how it affects you as a user, see Google’s explanation of what FLoC is and why you should block it in the linked guide. please. To briefly summarize, FLoC groups users with similar browsing habits into groups, and advertisers can serve targeted ads based on these groups. However, this may result in fingerprinting, which you can avoid by following the steps below to opt out of FLoC.

Opt out of FLoC on Google Chrome Desktop

As first spotted by the folks at gHacks, Google added an option to disable FLoC (Privacy Sandbox) in Chrome Canary build 93.0.4528.0, but this could be hidden behind a Chrome flag. There is a gender. When I checked in Chrome Canary build 93.0.4530.1 on my Windows PC, the toggle appeared without adjusting any Chrome flags. If you don’t see this feature, you can enable it by::

1. Open chrome://flags and search for “Privacy Sandbox Settings 2” .

2. Next, select Enabled from the drop-down menu next to the flag and restart your browser. Paste the link below into the Chrome address bar to access the flag directly.

 chrome://flags/#privacy-sandbox-settings-2 

3. After restarting your browser, open the Chrome settings page and go to the Privacy & Security tab from the left sidebar. In the Privacy and Security section, you’ll see a new option called Privacy Sandbox . You can access Privacy Sandbox directly at the following address:

 chrome://settings/privacySandbox 

4. The Privacy Sandbox page displays two toggle buttons. Disable both the “Privacy Sandbox Trial” and “FLoC” toggles and you’re good to go. In particular, disabling just the Privacy Sandbox Trial toggle automatically turns off FLoC.

That’s it. You have now opted out of Google’s FLoC tracking system and will no longer be registered with any advertiser groups.

Opt out of FLoC on Google Chrome mobile

1. Open Chrome on your phone and go to Settings. From the Settings page, open the Privacy & Security section .

2. Tap the Privacy Sandbox option on the Privacy & Security page. Then, disable the “Privacy Sandbox Trial” toggle on the next page. That’s it. You have successfully opted out of Chrome’s privacy sandbox trial, disabling Google’s FLoC in the process.

Disable Google’s Privacy Sandbox Trial in Chrome

This is how to disable FLoC in Google Chrome. For more tips like this, see the Chrome settings you need to change. You can also consider switching to a privacy-friendly browser from our article on the best browsers for privacy, or check out one of the best browser alternatives to Google Chrome.