Maintaining your privacy online is essential, especially with the huge amount of personal information you spread around the net. Happily, Windows 8 has built-in privacy options that allow you to decide what can and can’t be tracked about you and your Windows 8 use.

There are a few different ways to protect yourself when using Windows 8 and when surfing the web. Go to the settings charm and click on Change PC settings then on Privacy. Here you have three options. The first decision you have to make is whether applications should be able to share your location. Geotagging, as it’s called, can be fun but ask yourself if you really want all of your Twitter followers or Facebook friends knowing exactly where you are. However, there are upsides to having your location available as mapping tools will be able to locate you more easily.

You then have to choose if an app can access your name and account picture – this is less intrusive than your location, but if you are managing your online reputation it's something you should and do have control over.

Finally, you can choose to stop any applications from sending any URLs they use to Microsoft. It’s unlikely anyone at Microsoft is particularly interested in your personal web use but they’ll use it for research purposes to make the store more reliable and improving it overall. For each of the settings in Privacy you simply click the slider to make you choice.

For privacy when searching the web you’ll have to set your choices in the web browser you use. In Internet Explorer you need to go to Internet Options by clicking on the settings icon in the tool bar. Once you’ve done that swap to the Privacy tab to see the variety of options available to you. 

For more advice on family computing, visit the Dell Tech Zone