How to clear your Bing history

Bing, like many other search engines, collects all the terms and phrases you search for and stores them in a handy location. 

However, you might not want advertising companies tracking your browsing habits, so this guide will show you exactly how you can delete your Bing internet search history.

Why does Bing keep my search history?

As was briefly mentioned above, Bing keeps all the searches you make and stores them in a single location. Bing does this for a number of reasons – the main one is personalizing your experience and serving the search results that are most relevant to you. 

However, search history is also used to target adverts at users with a higher degree of personalization. So, if you don't like the idea of your data being sent to advertising companies from Bing, deleting your search history should definitely be top of your list. 

How to Delete search history in Bing

You can clear your bing search history in just four steps. Unless you have a really full cache, this should only take a few minutes. This is what to do: 

1. Navigate to the Bing homepage.

2. Click on the four horizontal lines in the top right-hand corner. 

3. Click 'search history' once in the drop-down menu.

4. On the next page, click 'clear search history' on the right-hand side.

    

Your browsing history should now be deleted and your cache clear!

How to browse search privately on Bing? 

There is a way to search in 'private mode' when using the bing search engine and app, meaning you won't have to go back and delete your browsing history. 

1. Click on the three dots on the right-hand side of the search bar.
   

2. When the drop-down menu pops up, click on 'search settings'. 

3. Toggle the 'Private mode' button to 'on'. 

You should now be able to browse with no search history being stored! 

Is Bing the best search engine for privacy?

Bing is certainly an upgrade on Google in terms of privacy – Microsoft does not track user data in quite the same depth as google does, and Bing just isn't connected to as complex a web of data collection as Google is. 

However, Bing still falls behind sites like DuckDuckGo, designed to maximize your privacy when browsing online and deploys no function that helps the search engine identify unique users. However, it does have functions like a Map feature which DuckDuckGo doesn't have, and isn't far behind Google when it comes to a smooth search experience.

Check out the most private search engines