Browser Fingerprinting: What Your Browser Is Telling Everyone About You

You’re perpetually leaving your fingerprint each complete nan internet. You time off it pinch nan individual accusation you stock willingly, nan individual accusation you stock unknowingly, and pinch nan upland of information that gets sent to each website you load. Maybe you cognize a point aliases 2 astir privateness and decided to pick up a VPN to support your browsing private. Even then, you’re a batch little backstage than you expect.

Your PC and nan millions of servers that dress up nan net stock a batch of information, but nan immense mostly of it doesn’t autumn nether nan umbrella of personally identifiable information. For instance, a website mightiness cognize that your default strategy connection is English, truthful it loads nan English type of its website. That’s not personally identifiable. Sure, nan website knows English is your preferred language, but nan aforesaid is existent for hundreds of millions of others.

In isolation, this information doesn’t mean overmuch of anything. Together, however, it tin place you. This is nan information that makes up your browser fingerprint, and it tin beryllium utilized to track you crossed nan internet, moreover erstwhile visiting different websites, opening different browsers, and erstwhile you person a VPN turned on. Here's everything you request to know.

What’s a Browser Fingerprint?

The champion measurement to picture a browser fingerprint is to show you. Go to AmIUnique and hold a infinitesimal aliases 2 for nan trial to run. You tin spot each nan accusation your browser sends, arsenic good arsenic a similarity people based connected each nan results successful nan AmIUnique database. If you can’t beryllium bothered, my fingerprint connected a PC moving Windows and Chrome—by acold nan astir communal operating strategy and browser—is unsocial retired of complete 4 cardinal entries successful nan AmIUnique database.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has its ain fingerprinting tester called Cover Your Tracks, and it puts nan accusation successful a somewhat different way. I’m utilizing Linux connected my PC, and according to this test, that’s existent of astir 1 retired of six PCs nan EFF has tested; not unsocial astatine all. However, my WebGL fingerprint—details astir really graphics are rendered successful my browser—is very unique. Only 1 successful complete 33,000 browsers has nan aforesaid WebGL fingerprint.

Your browser fingerprint is simply a postulation of innocuous accusation astir your PC that, erstwhile put together, is unsocial capable that it could place an individual. Some of nan components of your browser fingerprint see your computer's hardware, your browser and version, nan various versions of package you person moving successful your browser, nan fonts you person installed connected your PC, your clip zone, your strategy language, your keyboard layout; nan database goes on. Out of nan dozens of pieces of information, nary of them could place you individually. It's erstwhile this information is bundled together that your fingerprint becomes unique.

There are immoderate situations wherever that could beryllium a problem. If you are a peculiarly high-profile fig pinch a large cybersecurity target connected your back, personification could place and way you, waiting for a cardinal vulnerability to show up earlier attacking.

Most of america aren’t high-profile figures. No, your browser fingerprint isn’t utilized for an attack; it’s utilized for advertising. Most targeted advertizing is straightforward. You sojourn a website, opt into aliases retired of cookies, and immoderate cookies stay place you to service you ads. Fingerprinting useful successful a measurement that doesn’t require cookies. Advertisers tin get astir needing a unsocial identifier (a cookie) to way your behaviour online.

Advertising agencies person utilized fingerprinting to bypass cookies too. In a ProPublica exposé, it was revealed that AddThis, a institution that made societal sharing tools, was utilizing canvas fingerprinting down nan scenes. This type of search draws invisible images connected your surface and past uses really those images are rendered and displayed to create a unsocial identifier. AddThis, according to nan report, was successful usage everyplace from nan charismatic White House website to YouPorn, and it started utilizing canvas fingerprinting without nan knowledge of nan websites that utilized its tools.

Where (and Why) Fingerprinting Is Used

Fingerprinting is utilized each complete nan internet, and it’s not ever for nefarious purposes. The astir well-known instrumentality for fingerprinting is nan aptly-named FingerprintJS, made by Fingerprint, which says its software is successful usage astatine companies for illustration Dropbox, Western Union, TikTok, and Trustpilot.

Fingerprint says its package tin thief forestall fraud. Instead of blocking a login aliases costs from a circumstantial location, a fingerprint creates a much intelligent blocking mechanism. Or possibly you could usage it successful a crippled to forestall cheaters from spoofing nan accounts of existent users. And, if you request a cynical example, you could usage it to forestall relationship sharing, which we’ve seen ad nauseam from streaming services.

The problem pinch browser fingerprinting is that it's probabilistic successful nature. It looks astatine a wealth trove of information to way you online, not immoderate individual portion of information. A VPN, for instance, tin hide your IP address and make you look successful a different location. If capable of nan different information successful your fingerprint is consistent, however, it tin still beryllium utilized to way you. Your IP reside whitethorn beryllium different, but conscionable astir everything other astir your browsing is not.

There whitethorn beryllium applicable usage cases for fingerprinting, but you really don’t person overmuch opportunity successful nan matter. Even pinch protections for illustration nan GDPR, nan infinitesimal you load a website, location are apt a fewer twelve (if not more) trackers copying nan accusation your browser shares for their ain purposes. Services for illustration Fingerprint leverage that accusation to create an identifier, but make nary mistake, nan information is ever there.

How to Get Around Browser Fingerprinting

You can’t get astir browser fingerprinting, astatine slightest not without important compromises to your browsing acquisition (more connected that later). Even if you were to spoof aliases obfuscate each portion of information your browser sends along, that’d astir apt activity against you. The extremity pinch avoiding fingerprinting is to go a Jane Doe online; you want to vanish successful nan crowd, truthful each portion of information that makes you guidelines retired sends up a reddish flag.

The champion measurement to conflict backmost against fingerprinting is to hide aliases rotate capable accusation truthful that it’s much difficult to way you, not impossible. And that starts pinch a VPN, though it doesn’t make you afloat anonymous. The clearest online fingerprint you time off is your IP reside and beingness location, and VPNs hide both. More importantly, galore of nan best VPNs coming see further devices to combat fingerprinting.

ProtonVPN, which is what I usage myself, includes NetShield to artifact trackers, ads, and malware. It doesn’t forestall fingerprinting, but NetShield tin astatine slightest seizure and artifact requests from well-known trackers to make you a spot much backstage online. NordVPN has a akin feature, arsenic does Surfshark.

The astir robust type of this type of blocker comes from Windscribe. Through its browser extension, you tin do things for illustration rotate your browser’s personification supplier to make it look arsenic if you’re utilizing a different browser, arsenic good arsenic spoof your language, clip zone, and GPS accusation to lucifer nan VPN server you’re connected to. Again, this will not make you afloat anonymous online. But an hold for illustration nan 1 Windscribe offers makes search your fingerprint much difficult.

On apical of a VPN, you tin usage a tracking-resistant browser for illustration Brave aliases Firefox. Brave combats fingerprinting by blocking aliases randomizing values that are returned to trackers, dealing pinch nan rumor by making instances of Brave look arsenic akin arsenic imaginable while besides ensuring that identifiers aren’t capable to way you crossed sessions and websites.

Firefox has akin protections successful place, arsenic good arsenic features for illustration nan Multi-Account Containers add-on. With it, you tin person respective containers successful your browser that unrecorded independently of each different but wrong nan aforesaid browser window. For example, you mightiness person each of your societal media websites successful 1 container, your shopping successful another, and your news successful a third. These should each beryllium isolated capable that what you interact pinch connected societal media isn’t abruptly influencing nan ads you spot connected news websites.

If You Need Absolute Privacy

You tin get astir browser fingerprinting if you perfectly request to, but nan juice isn’t worthy nan compression for astir people. It involves utilizing a browser that’s slow, clunky, and will often break aliases garbage to load nan websites you want to visit. Browser fingerprinting really becomes problematic erstwhile it’s utilized to way you crossed websites, browsers, and sessions. Restricting each of your browsing to a browser designed to get astir browser fingerprinting isn’t applicable successful astir cases.

But I person immoderate options if you want to spell crazy. First things first: Regardless of nan browser you’re using, you request to disable JavaScript. The immense mostly of information collected done your browser is done JavaScript. You tin disable it connected conscionable astir immoderate browser, including Chrome, but it’ll break immoderate websites. Nearly each website uses JavaScript, and only immoderate of them are designed to activity pinch JavaScript disabled.

With JavaScript disabled, you request a VPN and a browser built to get astir tracking. The astir celebrated is undoubtedly Tor. Tor routes your postulation done nan Tor network, which is simply a bid of nodes to disguise nan root of your traffic. It’s incredibly slow, often blocked, and clunky to use. You don’t usage nan Tor web for casual browsing. Other options see browsers for illustration Librewolf, which is simply a fork of Firefox. And, erstwhile again, you’ll person to woody pinch slow load times and websites breaking owed to blocking definite APIs.

There are alleged anti-detect browsers available, which are little astir protecting individual privateness and much astir skirting nan position of work of astir websites. They’re group up for group utilizing aggregate accounts—read, bot farms—and you’ll request to salary a monthly interest to usage one.

As you tin hopefully tell, this crippled of privateness starts to break down quickly. If you’re going done each this effort to disguise your browsing online, you’ll besides request to springiness up connected extensions, different package you usage that’s connected to nan internet, and moreover your OS. Windows and macOS way you, aft all. You tin do a batch to safeguard your privateness and make it much difficult to way you online. But if you really request privacy, you request to log off.

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