WARNING: Here’s How to Remove Facebook Apps (that Might be Spying on You)

Remove Facebook Apps:-Spending hours on social media is no big deal in today’s time. How can you take off your eyes from that colorful, entertaining platform that edifies you along with passing your time? But there lingers a question of how safe is your personal profile on a Titanic medium like Facebook. 

When you just might be enjoying your scrolls and feeds, a few bugs might invade your province,  making it unsound for you. Without your knowledge, these malicious applications might be spying on your daily activities. Facebook with its growing popularity and outreach is often called out to be the most unsafe medium of social interaction. 

Having a foreign invasion in your personalized account is threatening as you are unknowingly allowing people to sneak into your personal data. This happens to be an hour of crisis that needs heed. There are certain measures that can help you safeguard your online privacy. 

Does Facebook Really Spy?

Being one of the biggest forces behind the technological revolution, Facebook has always been in line with the tech world. It is often questioned about how effective it is when it comes to securing the personal privacy of every user. 

In terms of business, Facebook earns huge revenue from different syndicates by sharing these recent activities of yours on various websites. The advertisers of the syndicates then use this information to shape and showcase ads based on your preferences.

While walking on roads or entering a book store, all your movements are tracked via the location settings of your phone.

Soon after passing by a restaurant, you might start receiving ads showing luscious food images. These will be catering to your food style preferences based on your last dine-out posts on Facebook.

So yes, Facebook does keep an eye on your interests and whereabouts if you allow it to, either through location or cookies! 

How Do They Spy on You?

Although Facebook claims to keep your activities private and safe, there’s always a question on how exactly do they do so by keeping a watch on our movements every second. While using social media, one can wonder how they can be spied on while browsing social media on a smartphone.

Check out how Facebook overruns your privacy.

Tracking your location

Imagine going on a trip with your friends and onboarding a hotel you connect to their WiFi. Soon you will start receiving notifications on Facebook of the best dine-outs and stay in lodges near you.

How does this happen? Once your location is accessible by Facebook, they keep a constant track of your location and, hence, try to improve your experiences thereby. 

But, while trying to provide you with knowledge about your surroundings they somehow do keep a watch on your activities and eventually invade your privacy. 

Keeping records of your recent business

When you keep posting and updating your day-to-day life on Facebook, it tells a lot about your preferences and personality. For example- if you always post about decorating your living space with flowers and plants, you’ll soon see advertisements from different sites trying to impress you with their green campaigns. 

Facebook calls this to be the personalization of ads. While doing so, Facebook keeps a record of all your recent visits and activities. It does so by picking up all those hidden signals of your liking, sharing, or visiting other websites. 

Facebook Pixel

The Facebook pixel is a code fitted in a website to grab users’ on-site behaviors and connect it to Facebook user profiles. This connection allows social media platforms like Facebook to curb out the targeted audiences for a relevant advertisement. It also helps to record the footprints of an individual on reverting back to the primary website.

In short, the Facebook Pixel is an invisible tool that keeps a watch on your actions and reports it to the advertisers to customize ads as per your preferences.

It just lays quiet by taking notes of your activities and syncing them with Facebook. It does so to remind you frequently of either your abandoned shopping cart or some other activities.

Saver is the deceiver

Facebook allows you to install its private VPN (Virtual Private Network) named Onavo. Onavo lets you travel through different websites without acknowledging your presence. That is, it allows you to visit various sites anonymously. Facebook calls this a protective measure for its users.

Wait, this is what Facebook tells you. But in reality, it uses Onavo as an analytic tool to explore your recent searches and visits to improve its own presentation of ads and services.

Whichever social media platforms you tend to engage in, Facebook will keep a record of it through Onavo and use it for its own modifications. 

Importance of Having Online Privacy

When the world is running on clicks and shares, it is really important to know why your online data needs security. There are multiple big boy firms that often track down your activities through different social media platforms just to approach you with customized advertisements.

Whether it’s a company or spyware, it is essential to safeguard all your private materials hooked up on online resources from them.

Personal security

It ensures the safety of your private information like financial records, house address, income statements, medical information, etc. Facebook admins can even gain access to your personal contact information. It is advisable not to share or use your Facebook password anywhere online. 

Prevention from data misuse

Data misuse includes a very broad spectrum of misusing your personal information for various causes. It happens when you willingly share your details on a website or with a  company, but it leaks out due to the lack of efficiency in keeping it confidential.

For example– Making your information accessible to outsiders, selling your personal details, misusing credit-card details, etc.

Prevent you from cyberbullying

Cyberbullying can be very treacherous. It refers to harassing an individual through electronic means. It causes both psychological and physical stress within an individual.

Information that we tend to share with the world can be used abominably against us. Having a strong online base can protect you from facing this crisis.

Safeguarding against manipulation of data

If handled by Spyware, your private data can be manipulated, changed, or compromised to fit their desired requirements without your knowledge. This poses a question to both the confidentiality and trustworthiness of any social media platform. 

Prevention from online tracking

Your every online movement can be tracked back by invisible website bugs. They lay down silently watching your activities and signaling them back to the advertisers who require them to broaden their outreach of different advertisement campaigns.

Measures to Stop Facebook from Spying

There are certain ways in which you can keep your account safe from the unwanted invasion of Facebook’s own bugs. Here are some ways listed below.

Know what you are posting

We often post very sensitive information about ourselves on Facebook. For example- our present location, our family details, day-to-day locomotion, etc. Such details can be used in a very treacherous way if headed with dreadful intentions. It is important that social media is viewed by a huge crowd and so are your posts. 

Be careful of what you choose to tell the world. The data can be used by others to create a fake profile with your details or sell your personal data to the traffickers.

Being completely safe on Facebook is not something impossible. If you look after your footprints in the digital world and try to keep your data private rather than public you might soon learn to keep your online privacy on track. 

Keep your location-off

Don’t let Facebook track your steps while you are heading anywhere, be it a restaurant or an amusement spot. Whichever app you choose to engage in, turn off your location from their respective settings. Don’t allow any application to locate you by opting for either ‘Never’ or ‘While Using The App Only’, never opt for ‘Always’. 

You can also do so by going to the Settings> Account Settings> Location > Turn Off Location. There can be some applications that identify your location and port it to Facebook. So, you need to consider checking up on such applications as well.

Don’t let any app locate you unless it is necessary. Leaving location on, allows your phone to hunt down your exact position via GPS (Global Positioning System) and even notify your friends nearby about your presence. This can really be annoying sometimes.

Use a VPN

Engrave a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to secure all your private data. It will assure you complete privacy on the net. A trusted VPN will never share your online footprints even with your Internet Service Provider. It will let you browse through the net without any identification.

 A VPN connection keeps everything encrypted. It keeps your IP address in disguise and lets you drive through various websites without your IP address being traced back. It secures your functionality, privacy, and management in a network. 

Turn off your microphone

Intrusion can also be by eavesdropping on your conversations. Applications that don’t need to access the microphone to function efficiently should be withheld from its use.

Turn off the microphone access from all such apps that you think might not need to listen to your instructions to execute their operations.

Doing so can prevent you from using Google Assistant or voice assistant. However, you will at least be sure that other than the ones you intend to hear you, nobody else can overhear your words.

Although Facebook has frequently denied the fact that they use microphones to function and bring down the target audiences for advertisements, it is safe to take preventive measures rather than risking your privacy.

Say no to personalized advertisement

You might have observed that Facebook shows you ads based on your recent activities. Whether you visit any website or Facebook page, they keep a track of your preferences and cast personalized ads based on that. You can disable this function for ensuring your privacy on Facebook.

The “Off Facebook Activity” tool can help you review your visits and activities on Facebook. You can clear all the data stored in it, by tapping onto “clear history” on the Off Facebook Activity box.

By doing so, you can ensure that no third-party application can access your data. You can also manage your activities, to permit which third-party applications you would like to share your recent activities with. 

Step to Delete Apps from Facebook

You can also delete some applications that you connected with via Facebook.

1)Open your Facebook Application

It will be much easier to execute this whole program smoothly on a desktop rather than on your phone.

2)Tap on to the blue tiny arrow

See for an blue tiny arrow at the top of the navigation bar. Click on it to proceed further. 

3)Opt for Settings

On tapping on to the blue arrow, a small dialogue box will appear. Go ahead and select the Settings option. You’ll land on the General Account Settings page.

4)Tap on to the ‘Apps’ option

On clicking on apps you’ll see the number of applications you are connected with on Facebook. 

5)Cross and Clean

Click on the cross sign beside each application and dissolve the pop-up menu. Tick on the ‘Delete all your apps activity and proceed with “Remove”.

You are good to go now! You will soon realize that the number of advertisements popping up in your feed has decreased a lot, making it much smoother to work with. 

Conclusion

Using social media will cause you no harm if you are vigilant enough of every bit of information that you decide to publicize. Being sure of what we are posting and where, makes things much more reliable and trustworthy.

Honestly, with every advancement in technology, there is a new challenge to meet for its users. No one makes your online privacy secure other than yourself. By implementing the above-mentioned methods you might be benefitted from easing yourself from the current crisis.