Privacy

32003 readers

1163 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

Chat rooms

[Matrix/Element]Dead
Discord

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

Is brave the only browser with fingerprint randomization? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by chewgrabonion@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

26 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I use brave for this reason.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Rez@sh.itjust.works 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

But isn't randomization supposed to give you a different unique fingerprint each time? So yes, you would be unique and easily tracked but only until your fingerprint changes

[–] Rose@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

So what's the benefit of this over blending in each time?

[–] random65837@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

That was addressed above, you ever see "identical" twins? They look exactly the same if you see then once, twice, 3 times, but if you see both of them constantly, you'll start seeing the small difference in them and then be able to identify who's who. Same exact thing.

[–] virtualbriefcase@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I don't think there is any proven results, but I think the reason the EFF prefers Braves decision is the philosophy that there are so many data points that it could be possible to link you to it using the ones not standardized by anti fingerprinting.

Like ways to incorrectly describe someone. One describes a guy correctly but generically. One describes a guy with a lot of detail but the wrong race and two feet too short.

[–] linearchaos@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes it is, and that's why the EFF recommends it.

[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Where do the EFF recommend randomisation? From the EFF's surveillance self defence course.

This can be an effective method for breaking persistence, but it is important to note that a tracker may be able to determine that a randomization tool is being used, which can itself be a fingerprinting characteristic. Careful thought has to go into how randomizing fingerprinting characteristics will or will not be effective in combating trackers.

They don't directly recommend either... But then on https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/learn

In practice, the most realistic protection currently available is the Tor Browser, which has put a lot of effort into reducing browser fingerprintability. For day-to-day use, the best options are to run tools like Privacy Badger or Disconnect that will block some (but unfortunately not all) of the domains that try to perform fingerprinting, and/or to use a tool like NoScript( for Firefox), which greatly reduces the amount of data available to fingerprinters.

So the EFF seem to recommend generic over randomisation...

Maybe ask yourself why the Tor project decided against randomisation?