How to Turn On Bluetooth on Windows 10

Adding a Bluetooth Wi-Fi Dongle and Devices on Windows 10

If your Windows 10 PC doesn't have Bluetooth, plan on dedicating one of your USB ports to a small hardware dongle. Bluetooth Wi-Fi dongles cost around $10 in the U.S., £7 in the U.K. It isn't a big investment by itself, but the cost of wireless hardware such as a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard can add up. Make sure you budget everything in advance.

Once the Wi-Fi dongle has been plugged in, Windows 10 should be able to detect and install the driver for it. Once that's done, make sure that Bluetooth is enabled in the software configuration. Press and release the Windows key, and type 'Bluetooth' in the search field. Select 'Bluetooth and other device settings' from the results.

Make sure that the selector switch for Bluetooth is 'On' and that the status of Bluetooth is 'Now discoverable'. If this isn't the case, reboot the PC and check again after a fresh boot-up. If that doesn't work, unplug the Wi-Fi dongle and try it in a different USB port.

Once the status of Bluetooth is discoverable, you should be able to pair up Bluetooth wireless devices to the PC. Under 'Bluetooth and other device settings', clock on 'Add Bluetooth or another device'. Check out the documentation for the Bluetooth device to learn how you can activate its 'Pairing' mode. Once pairing is active, select the device off of the list. It should automatically pair to Windows.

Then return to 'Bluetooth and other device settings'. The devices that say 'Connected' are currently active on the system. Any devices that say 'Paired' have been configured to work with the Bluetooth Wi-Fi, but are not currently turned on.

Now that you know how to turn on Bluetooth on Windows 10, let's look at removing unwanted Bluetooth devices from the system.

Removing Bluetooth Devices on Windows 10

As before, press and release the Windows key, and type 'Bluetooth' in the search field. Select 'Bluetooth and other device settings' from the results.

In the device list, you should be able to select any piece of hardware with a status of 'Connected' or 'Paired'. Once clicked on, a button will appear below the device that says 'Remove device'.

This will completely remove the device and the pairing settings from the Windows 10 system. In order to use that device again, refer to the section above on adding Bluetooth devices.

Why do Bluetooth Dongles make Hardware Profiles More Unique?

Because there are a number of good Bluetooth dongles, perhaps two dozen popular models, the driver information is fairly unique. Bluetooth Low Energy devices use something called a Generic Attribute Profile, or a GATT profile, that shares information about characteristics, services, and related data with any paired device via a lookup table.

There's been a push to make Bluetooth devices directly accessible, with a user's permission, to select websites. This will allow for new ways to create and store hardware profiles, tailor settings for online games, and the like. But there are security and privacy concerns, similar to the ones surrounding WebHID and driverless human interface devices. And many of those issues have not been fully resolved, including the impact on web browser fingerprinting.

This is one of the reasons that Apple refuses to implement web-based Bluetooth APIs and protocols in Safari. However, this is an option that can be enabled on Chrome and other popular browsers. Web Bluetooth is one potential way, depending on the scripts being used and the security settings within the browser, that Bluetooth information can be added to a browser's fingerprint.

Browser fingerprinting is the way that major advertisers will be tracking people once Google shuts down third-party cookies in 2022. Giving websites more factors to narrow down your exact combination of hardware, including Bluetooth drivers and connected devices, makes your web browser's fingerprint that much more likely to be unique.

How Can a User Mask Their Browser Fingerprint?

In order to mask and randomize the data that gets reported to the Javascript tools run by certain websites, a privacy app needs to be used. Hoody is the best choice and is compatible with most of the web browsers out there.

Hoody masks or randomizes the drivers and hardware that are reported to untrusted websites. So adding a new Bluetooth dongle and one or more Bluetooth devices won't make your browser fingerprint any more unique as long as you're running Hoody.

With Hoody installed, you can make use of your Bluetooth devices online without fear and browse the web anonymously.

Conclusion

Learning how to turn on Bluetooth devices on Windows 10 is relatively easy. Protecting yourself and your web browser from excessive tracking is a bit more of a complex issue. Hopefully, the information that has been provided in this article will help on both of those counts.