Privacy

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Here’s What Your Browser is Telling Everyone About You (www.wired.com)

submitted 4 weeks ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to c/privacy@programming.dev

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You’re constantly leaving your fingerprint all over the internet. You leave it with the personal information you share willingly, the personal information you share unknowingly, and with the mountain of data that gets sent to each website you load. Maybe you know a thing or two about privacy and decided to pick up a VPN to keep your browsing private. Even then, you’re a lot less private than you expect.

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[–] benignintervention@lemmy.world 17 points 4 weeks ago (4 children)

I have never figured out how to prevent fingerprinting. They pull so much data and basically nothing works if you block it. It's also kind of a catch 22 because if you change the information your device provides too much you become an identifiable outlier.

Maybe someone who knows more can help?

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 11 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

2 schools of thought on fingerprinting.

One is Tor only and prevent anything, your internet sucks and everything else is exposed.

Second is that every browser and browser extension and IP makes a new fingerprint. So get a VPN and install vanilla Firefox, Floorp, Chromite, Brave, LibreWolf, Mullvad, and 2 others, all with uBlock Origin (not Brave). Do your business associated with your real name in FF, then rotate VPN locations and browsers based on how you feel. Add JShelter and a header blocker to turn on only when you feel like it. You now have 20 different browser fingerprints and only 1 is tied to your name.

[–] benignintervention@lemmy.world 9 points 4 weeks ago

Ahh okay, so kind of sandbox your associations

[–] Fiery@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Doing all that will reduce/eliminate some data points, but not nearly all.

https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/

After running through the test here you can see the various factors that can be used to fingerprint you.

Your language, timezone, screen specs, gpu, audio etc will not change with your browser.

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 2 points 4 weeks ago

I'm well-versed in privacy issues.

EFF's test is fine, but CreepJS does a better job. I'm really sad that a few months ago they removed an API where it would estimate your fingerprint and give you a 30 day window of how many times you've visited. Tor's benefit was it told me on my first visit that I had been there 80 times in the last 30 days, which wasn't true at all.

Fonts are typically where most browsers fail at hiding hyper-detailed fingerprinting. Mullvad and Tor are the only 2 browsers that hide all that, but can't hide your OS. Nothing can, which is where a VM comes in handy as well. Spoofing values is helpful as it at least masks true values, making your data garbage. Notable garbage, but still garbage.

[–] BroBot9000@lemmy.world 8 points 4 weeks ago

Block everything and fuck the websites that break. A piehole helps a lot.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 5 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Tor browser is really the only way around it

[–] benignintervention@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

I've been thinking about that, but I haven't had the executive function to sit down and actually commit to it

[–] cRazi_man@europe.pub 4 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Apparently Mullvad browser on desktop is good for anti-fingerprinting. I've been using that.