Privacy and Cleaning Up
Apple is letting users download a copy of all the data they have on you. Log into privacy.apple.com with your Apple ID and password to get to where you can select which bits of all the data Apple has on you. This is also a way to download documents, photos, and videos in their original format, and contacts, calendars, and bookmarks in VCF, ICS, and HTML format.
If you want to poke around and find out which Facebook advertisers have targeted you, Facebook makes it possible but a little hard to get to. This won’t tell you why particular advertisers are targeting you, just that they have some bit(s) of information about you from some other source and they are matching things like your phone number, email address, street address, etc. Log into Facebook and go to your Settings; close to the bottom of that dropdown menu (on the left side if you are using a desktop web browser) there should be a link to “Ad Preferences.” Click or tap into there and select “Advertisers you’ve interacted with” and then “Who use a contact list added to Facebook” (slightly different wording on the Facebook app). Here you will see all the advertisers that might be reaching out to you.
Windows updates, especially the semi-annual major upgrades they are delivering in Windows 10, can leave around many temporary files. If Windows fails to clean up after itself, then you can by opening up Windows’ 10 Settings app, then the system section, and then the storage section. Scroll down to where you see an option that says “Free Up Space Now” and click. Here you can clear out many things. But read carefully and proceed slowly. The “Previous Windows installations” choice is what will help with reclaiming major amounts of space. Check that box and click the “Remove Files” button. Wait and probably reboot the computer.
Time to remind you about how to see and adjust the information that Google keeps about your searches. Log into your Google account at myaccount.google.com. Look for and click into “Manage your Google activity” and click through “Go To Activity Control” and also check the “Go To My Activity” sections to adjust and/or erase search histories kept by Google. If you sign out of your Google account on the web, then your Google-based searches aren’t tracked by Google.