What are the best ways to prevent being tracked these days?

Im tired of every little search turning into ads across different devices and apps. I searched for a specific type of home loan today, but not because I want to buu a house, and now all the targeted ads are hunting me down. I go down a rabbit hole researching something and ads follow me for days. I search for printer drivers and the internet now thinks I want to buy a printer. Ive had enough

What does tracking tech look like in 2026? Does clearing cookies still help? Are all my browser fingerprints linked in a database somewhere? Are there any technologies besides those two in use?