Doesn't even detect common browser extensions.
It has file system free space, but it's wrong.
You cannot expect people to technically protect themselves from tracking.
(you can invite them to not use abusing services though)
First, you'd have to define how one can determine what an abusive service is. Is Facebook an abusive service? Is some random website that happens to use FB's SDK an abusive service? How does a normie internet user find out the site they are using has abusive code? Some plugin/extension that has a moderated list that prevents a page from loading and instead loads a page dedicated to explain how that specific site is abusive?
It is not checking how unique you are based off of some data-set it has.
This site also has plenty other such "issues"/"bugs" feels like it was quickly vibe-coded without much care.
This is very much an AI-centric website.
Besides, they do sell AI-related services.
Was it? I’m interested in what exactly in their post makes you say that. I see confusion, not any accusation regarding legitimacy.
> Besides, they do sell AI-related services.
I know, I checked the main domain. My point was simply that if you spend extra money on a domain which has a strong association with something, it would be expected that whatever you put on it is associated with it (which indeed is the case). Otherwise you’d be wasting money and confusing potential users, which isn’t generally good business practice.
> This can happen due to several reasons:
> [...] JavaScript Errors: When any of the 24+ fingerprint collection methods throws an error [...]
So when any of the browser APIs it exploits aren't available, it just fails instead of using that as a datapoint in itself. I'm unimpressed.
at this point browser fingerprinting is a feature, not a bug
[0]: https://brave.com
https://blog.castle.io/what-browser-fingerprinting-tests-lik...
I think there are a few potential problems with this view that I never see discussed:
- Firefox sends some dummy data when making use of privacy.resistFingerprinting, and so you should get a unique fingerprint _every time_ you visit a site, so the fact alone that you're unique might potentially not matter if you're _differently_ unique every time you visit the site. Is there a flaw in this line of thinking?
- My understanding is that the primary utility of browser fingerprinting is for advertising / tracking. In other words, the bulk of the population an advertiser would actually care about would be the huge middle of the bell curve on Chrome using Windows, not the privacy nuts on Linux with a custom browser config. In other words, if "blending in with the crowd" really worked I would think that tracking companies would fail against the most important and largest part of the user pool. If anything, it's more important to target grandma as she will actually click on ads and buy stuff online compulsively.
Can anyone speak to these points? I often feel like the pro-privacy people are just crawling in the dark and not really aware of that real-world tracking is actually occurring vs. what might be possible in a research paper. Maybe I'm just the one that's confused?
No, you're thinking correctly and the odd discourse that you (and I) see is based on two implicit assumptions:
1) Your threat model is a global observer that notices - and tracks and exploits - your supposed perfect per-request uniqueness.
2) Our browsers do not give us fine grained control over every observable value so if only one variable is randomized per request, that can be discarded and you are still identifiable by (insert collection of resolution and fan speed or mouse jiggle or whatever).
Item (1) I don't care about. I'd prefer per-hit uniqueness to what I have now.
Item (2) is a valid concern and speaks to the blunt and user-hostile tools available to us (browsers, that is) which barely rise to the level of any definition of "user agent" we might imagine.
I repeat: I would much prefer fully randomized per-request variables and I don't care how unique they are relative to other traffic. I care about how unique they are relative to my other requests. Unfortunately, I am wary of browser plug-ins and have no good way to build a trust model with the 12 different plug-ins this behavior would require. This is the fault of firefox and the bad decisions they continue to make.
Yes, because those randomized results can be detected, and that can be incorporated into your fingerprint. Think of a site that asks you about your birthday. If you put in obviously false answers like "February 31, 1901", a smart implementation could just round those answers off to "lies about birthday" rather than taking them at face value.
>- My understanding is that the primary utility of browser fingerprinting is for advertising / tracking. In other words, the bulk of the population an advertiser would actually care about would be the huge middle of the bell curve on Chrome using Windows, not the privacy nuts on Linux with a custom browser config. In other words, if "blending in with the crowd" really worked I would think that tracking companies would fail against the most important and largest part of the user pool. If anything, it's more important to target grandma as she will actually click on ads and buy stuff online compulsively.
The problem is all this fingerprinting/profiling machinery ends up building a profile on privacy conscious people, even if they're impossible to sell to. That can later be exploited if the data gets leaked, or the government demands it. "I'm not a normie so nobody would want to show ads to me" doesn't address this.
If i use my locked down firefox with a VPN where potentially a hand full other brills like me come out on the other end, i am not concerned about them building a profile of me.
> the bulk of the population an advertiser would actually care about would be the huge middle of the bell curve on Chrome using Windows
The middle of the bell curve in the USA would be an iPhone and there is very little you can customize. So many people have the same model with the same settings that trying to track by fingerprinting is effectively useless.
Yes, PC/Linux users have more to track. They are the minority though. I'm not saying therefore ignore this issue. But grandma is using her phone. Not a PC.
> Firefox sends some dummy data when making use of privacy.resistFingerprinting, and so you should get a unique fingerprint _every time_ you visit a site
This assumes the fingerprinter can't filter out that random data, and that the feature is actually useful. Some of things it does sound like sites might fail or cause problems. Setting timezone to something else seems like I'm going to make a reservation for 7pm only to find out it was 7pm in another timezone. other things it doesn't might not be good for grandma. CSS will report preferred reduced motion as False. CSS will report preferred contrast as No Preference.
I do not see how this is better
Yay, I am safe. I use Brave. Everyone should use Brave.
I suppose someone might say it is about performance of going through a virtual layer? I understandit might break specialized 3D web-apps...but for common web-browsing? idk. Do people regularly use web-based app that need direct access to a GPU to be fast and functional? But surely, an exceptions list could work.
I am sure I am missing something, but what?
AmazingTurtle•3h ago