Reducing the Data Harvest

[Brockett]

It will be evident to those who have knowledge of computermebobs that I know less than nothing. (Less than nothing is acheived when everything we know is wrong.
However :-

For some years now I have been using the free "SUPEAntispyware" to clean out my PC. I doubt it is able to clean out all of the tracking cookies and such but once a week I use the program and it says it finds something between five and six hundred items and removes them. A couple of months ago installed "Firefox" and "DuckDuck go" (which may or may not be a search engine that does or does not search through google )  SUPERAntispyware now reports forty to fifty tracking items per week.
Google is installed.
Facebook was installed and I have tried to uninstall it, but it may still be lurking in the background.

Q1. Is Google still active even when I don't use it?
Q2. If I uninstall Google will YouTube still work

[Fat Rat]

Dave,

Google Chrome is a browser and can be uninstalled, however, Google is big brother and you probably have a Google account to access Youtube etc. You can remove your Google account.

Have a look at Crap Cleaner (ccleaner.com), just use the free version, it will clean all of those tracking cookies and temp files. 

[vstroman]

I just tried downloading Crap Cleaner but like everything I try downloading lately I get a message saying 'contained a virus and was deleted'  using windows 10 I think, (another computer genius here you can tell!!)

[Fat Rat]

As long as you download from ccleaner.com and not a third part site all will be well. If you are getting spurious virus warnings, that sometimes indicates that you have a virus or some form or spyware or adware.

[Gert]

May I suggest that you try the free version of Wise Care 365 (https://www.wisecleaner.com).