The header is supported in most web browsers but due to lack of legal backing requiring its support, websites and advertising networks generally don’t respect it. Enabling this header though can help protect your privacy on the small number of websites that do respect it.
Do Not Track can be enabled in Chrome through its cookie settings under the “Privacy and security” section. To get to the setting you must open the Chrome settings by clicking on the three-dot icon in the top-right corner of the window and selecting “Settings” from the drop-down menu.
Once in the Chrome settings, scroll down to the “Privacy and security” section or click the heading with the same name on the left of the page. In the Privacy and security settings click on “Cookies and other site data”. Alternatively, you can open this URL in your Chrome browser to open the correct settings page.
Note: This link only works in the Chrome browser!
In the Cookies and other site data settings, the sixth setting is ‘Send a “Do Not Track” request with your browsing traffic’. Click anywhere on this box or on the slider to enable or disable Do Not Track.
When enabling Do Not Track, a small popup will appear that provides some information about Do Not Track. To enable Do Not Track, you need to click “Confirm”.
Unfortunately, Do Not Track is dying out, only a small number of websites ever respected it, and as of January 2019 the W3C working group for Do Not Track disbanded due to “Insufficient deployment” and lack of “indications of planned support”.
Enabling Do Not Track will likely have little effect on how you are tracked on the internet but doing so doesn’t come with any downsides. Ad-blockers such as uBlock Origin can be a relatively effective alternative way to block tracking scripts.
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