How to Manage Your Activity and Control Article Suggestions in Chrome - MUO - MakeUseOf

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When you launch Google Chrome on your smartphone, the first browser screen displays various article suggestions. While these suggestions might be useful to some users, others might want to adjust these suggested articles according to their interests, or just disable them altogether.

Here, we'll show you how to control or get rid of article suggestions in Google Chrome and Google App on your Android and iPhone.

How Google Comes Up With Suggested Articles

According to Google guidelines about suggested articles, Google suggests articles based on the user's interaction with the discover feed and their recent activity on the websites or mobile apps. In simple words, Google tracks your activity to analyze what you are interested in, and then suggests closely related articles that you might be interested in reading.

Google also tracks how you interact with the suggested articles. Google records data in Chrome whenever you click on any of the suggestions and considers this to be your preference.

In the future, Google will show suggested articles based on your preferences.

How to Manage Your Activity in Chrome

Make sure you are logged in to Chrome before following the steps below:

1. Go to Google My Activity from your mobile.

2. Click on the three bars below the search bar.

3. Go to Other Google Activity.

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Different Options in My Google Acitivty in Chrome

From this section, you can control your web and app activity, YouTube and location history settings, and the rest of the activity related to ads, subscriptions, and so on.

You'll need to change Web and App Activity settings to control or remove article suggestions from Chrome.

4. Go to Manage Activity.

As you scroll down in this section, you can see all the websites you visited until the last time you deleted recent activities. This is where Google analyzes your month-to-month activity and changes the suggested article as your interest changes.

You will see two settings right on top: Saving activity and Auto-delete.

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i). Saving Activity: This is the activity based on which Google suggests articles to you. Google will stop saving new activity if you turn this off.

ii). Auto-Delete: When enabled, this option deletes every new activity you create. You can also adjust it to delete an activity that gets older than 3, 6, or 18 months.

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Auto-delete Settings in Web and App Activity in Chrome

Before permanently deleting the previous activity, you'll see a preview of the topics of interest associated with your recent activity. Delete it by pressing the Confirm button.

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5. Go to the first settings of the saving activity.

6. Pause the saving settings in Web and App Activity.

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Deleting Activity With the Auto-Delete Option

You can also delete old saved activity in your browser from here. In the Discover option, tap on Delete located next to the Filter by data and products option to remove all activity. Delete activity by the last hour, last day, all-time, or any custom range.

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Different Ways to Delete Activity in Chrome

How to Manage Suggested Article Interests

Google allows users to manage individual topics or topics from a publisher to show in the suggested articles.

In Chrome, click on the three dots next to any of the suggested articles. The following options are available to you:

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Google Chrome Home With Suggested Articles

Download link: With this option, you can download and save the articles directly in Chrome. You can view them even when you're offline. These saved articles don't display any ads.

If you find an article interesting, save it. If not, the suggested articles list may update, and you won't access the articles later.

Hide story: This option will hide only the particular story you are tapping on from the suggested articles. So, you may see other suggested articles from the same publisher.

Not interested in [Topic]: With this option, you won't see any suggested article related to this topic in the future.

Not interested in [Publisher]: When you tap on this option, Google will block all the articles from this publisher regardless of whether you are interested in these topics or not.

Manage Interests: In manage interests, there are two options; Your interests and Hidden.

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Your interests: In here, you will find topics based on which you see suggested articles. You can directly hide or follow them.

Hidden: In this section, you will only see those topics you have hidden from the list of topics of interest. There, you can quickly unhide any topic.

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Hiding and Following Interests in Chrome

In case you do not want to hide an article or block a specific article or publisher, you can hide the suggestion article section from Chrome.

Here is how you can do that.

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Suggested Articles Showing in Google Chrome

1. Go to Chrome.

2. Open a new tab.

3. Click on Hide next to the Articles for you section.

How to Permanently Disable Suggested Articles From Google App

While Chrome only lets you hide suggested articles, the Google app lets you completely remove this section.

1. Open the Google app.

2. Tap on More.

3. Tap on Settings.

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Article Suggestions at Home of Google App

4. Go to General.

5. Turn off the Discover option.

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Turning Off Discover Option in Google App

After turning off the Discover option, restart Chrome, and you won't see suggested articles anymore.

How to Disable Suggested Articles on iPhone

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1. Open the Chrome app.

2. Click on three horizontal dots.

3. Go to Settings in the menu.

4. Scroll down to Article suggestions.

5. Toggle off the Article Suggestions option.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Can You Permanently Remove Suggested Articles From Chrome?

A year ago, one could disable the NTP server-side suggestions from the Chrome flags options to remove suggested articles. However, this feature isn't available anymore since the most recent Chrome update. So now, there is no known way to remove the suggested articles section from Chrome.

2. Does Google Show Suggested Articles in Incognito Mode?

In incognito mode, Google does not track any of your activity. As a result, you won't see suggested articles in incognito mode.

Hide or Turn Off Suggested Articles in Chrome and Google App

In Chrome, you can block a specific type of suggested article or articles from any publisher. With a single tap, you can also hide a single or all suggested articles. However, you may not be able to permanently disable them in Chrome on Android.

The Google App and Google Chrome on iPhone, however, allow you to remove the suggested articles permanently. By getting rid of these suggested articles from Chrome, you can focus on the task for which you launched Chrome in the first place.

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About The Author

Shan Abdul (28 Articles Published)

Shan Abdul is a Mechanical Engineering Graduate. After completing his education, he has started his career as a freelance writer. He writes about using different tools and software to help people to be more productive as a student or professional. In his spare time, he loves to watch Youtube videos on productivity.