I unfortunately can’t really see how a browser could still be nice to use and properly resist fingerprinting.
The site https://amiunique.org/fingerprint tries to fingerprint your browser and lists the used attributes along with their uniqueness within their dataset. And while a browser could pretty reliably lie about its User Agent or Platform, it’s often just necessary for a modern website to know, for example, what your view-port’s resolution is or what kind of audio/video codecs your device supports. Going through my own results, I’d say combining these necessary data points is probably enough to identify me, even though I’m pretty privacy-conscious.
Maybe I’m overly pessimistic, but I think preventing fingerprinting would need a regulatory instead of a technical solution. Unfortunately that doesn’t seem very likely anytime soon.
There are extentions for Firefox that randomise most of that. They add random supported codecs for example, enough to make it believable, not enough to make it a unique combination.
It’s not perfect, nothing is, but it seems to be good enough.
I’d say combining these necessary data points is probably enough to identify me
The EFF has had a couple of websites that would profile you on exactly this data, so you’re completely correct in that even the basic normal required metadata is more than enough to identify you pretty well.
coveryourtracks.eff.org is where it’s living now, and a quick glance shows that just using browser capabilities and such is absolutely enough to identify me.
Every browser can be fingerprinted, even Tor browser, which goes out of its way to resist fingerprinting. The only way to really avoid fingerprinting is to not use JavaScript, which is extremely limiting.
I unfortunately can’t really see how a browser could still be nice to use and properly resist fingerprinting.
The site https://amiunique.org/fingerprint tries to fingerprint your browser and lists the used attributes along with their uniqueness within their dataset. And while a browser could pretty reliably lie about its User Agent or Platform, it’s often just necessary for a modern website to know, for example, what your view-port’s resolution is or what kind of audio/video codecs your device supports. Going through my own results, I’d say combining these necessary data points is probably enough to identify me, even though I’m pretty privacy-conscious.
Maybe I’m overly pessimistic, but I think preventing fingerprinting would need a regulatory instead of a technical solution. Unfortunately that doesn’t seem very likely anytime soon.
There are extentions for Firefox that randomise most of that. They add random supported codecs for example, enough to make it believable, not enough to make it a unique combination.
It’s not perfect, nothing is, but it seems to be good enough.
The EFF has had a couple of websites that would profile you on exactly this data, so you’re completely correct in that even the basic normal required metadata is more than enough to identify you pretty well.
coveryourtracks.eff.org is where it’s living now, and a quick glance shows that just using browser capabilities and such is absolutely enough to identify me.
For the lazy: https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/
This helps so much more on mobile using an app. Thank you for your service!
Thats very good thank you
Browser?
Lol they own Android…it’s the entire os. They’re fingerprinting every android phone.
I’ve been using browsers for a couple of decades without digital fingerprinting and it’s nice enough for me. I see no need to make it nicer.
Such as?
Every browser can be fingerprinted, even Tor browser, which goes out of its way to resist fingerprinting. The only way to really avoid fingerprinting is to not use JavaScript, which is extremely limiting.