Securely Set Up Your Google Account In 3 Easy Steps

Google account

Most of the population has a Google account with which they access the different services it offers such as Internet search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Drive, Calendar, Google+, Translator, Photos, Blogger, or Hangouts, among others.

All these services generate information that is stored on Google’s servers, so it is recommended that users edit the default settings of their account so that, in this way, they have under control the data that is stored.

Within the services that Google offers us, we have an option called My Account from which we can control, protect and keep it safe.

In this option, we can access tools to protect our data and our privacy and decide if we want our information to contribute to improving the functioning of Google tools and services.

Next, following the instructions of the Internet Security Office, we indicate which are the steps you must follow to configure your account safely:

Login and security

Normally we limit ourselves to logging in by entering our username and password, but there is another configuration to increase security when logging into our account. We are referring to the log-in via the two-step verification method.

To do this, within the Login and security settings, in the Google Login section, we will look for the two-step verification option. To be able to log in in this way we must have a smartphone.

We will activate the option to protect our account with two-step verification and from now on, each time we log in, we will need the password and a unique verification code that we have received on our phone. Thanks to this method, even if someone gets our strong password, malicious users will not be able to log in if they do not have access to our phone.

Personal information and privacy

In this section, in the option to Manage your activity in Google we can configure the activity controls of the account.

The data that Google saves in our account can make Google services much more useful to us and we receive information that may interest us, such as more public transport options in Maps, faster search results, or how long it takes to return home. . But it is not always necessary to store all this information.

From this section we can deactivate:

• The option of activity on the web and in applications so that data from searches in applications and the browser is not saved in our account. We can also uncheck the option to include Chrome history and the activity we perform on websites and applications that use Google services.
• The location history, which is responsible for creating a private map of the sites we go to with our device.
• Device information, which stores our contacts, content calendar, applications, and other device data.
• The Voice and Audio activity, which helps to recognize our voice and improve speech recognition by storing our voice and audio inputs.
• The search history on YouTube, which saves the searches we carry out in said application to speed up future searches.
• The YouTube view history, which allows you to find videos that we have already seen.

In the following section on ad configuration, we can control the information that Google uses to display advertising.

Google gives us the option to see the ads that interest us most using the activity and information in our account. We can also remove the ad themes we don’t like and add the ones we like.

Account preferences

The last option to highlight to make our profile more secure is how to delete our account or certain services.

This option allows us to individually delete a specific Google service such as Gmail, Google+, YouTube, etc. Previously, before removing the service, we can download the data it contains.

Within this section, we can also delete the Google account and the data that we have stored. As with removing the services, we will be able to download all of our data. This way we will keep a backup copy, in case we need to make use of them in the future.