This holiday season, like any real millennial, I did all of my Christmas shopping online.
What I did not do was keep my browsing private, which means I've had an eclectic assortment of advertisements following me around, prompting me to buy more or remember that item I was so close to purchasing.
These personalized advertisements are a result of cookies - data sent from a website that is stored in your browser to remember what you viewed. Cookies can actually come in handy if you have a full shopping cart you want to bring up later, but they are also what prompts personalized advertisements to follow you around during future web browsing.
For those looking to shake off those annoying advertisements, keep scrolling for a step-by-step guide about how to disable cookies below.
And for more information and useful tips on data tracking, be sure to listen to the latest episode of Codebreaker, the podcast by Marketplace and Tech Insider.