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Security-wise, most browsers are an open door, happy to reveal your screen size, operating system, language preferences, or GPU model when a website asks. But telling those websites to stop selling your data to third parties is still more confusing than it should be.

Although about a dozen U.S. states—including California, Delaware, New Jersey, and Texas—now require businesses to honor consumers’ privacy preferences online, most browsers do not offer a native opt-out option that lets you signal those preferences by default. Now, the California Opt Me Out Act , which goes into effect on Jan 1, 2027, is making it mandatory for browsers to do so.

Still, for now, native support for a global privacy opt-out remains inconsistent among web browsers.…