Google said it was too hard to target ads to people
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Thats why their ToS is different in the EU.
Could I use a VPN to some place in the EU in order to have the different ToS
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Check out EFF cover your tracks: https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/
The results are very interesting. For me, the most unique thing about my browser was that I had two system languages, and so the accept-language header was very unique.
I now use vanadium (graphene OS), which simply sends made up values for a lot of headers, and so makes fingerprinting harder.
In general, you should try to be as "normal" as possible, use standard settings for everything, just accept English, etc..
That's a very interesting site, thank you!
It looks like the screen size is the most identifying info for me, followed by the webGL hash. Not much can be done about those on mobile right?
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Came across this article and it got me thinking, are there any simple ways to defeat advanced tracking methods (fingerprinting, tracking pixels, etc.)?
Obviously you could go the Tor on a virtual machine route, or a non persistent set up like TAILS, but what about a browser that's able to give say, a 80% solution?
I work in the security industry and am always looking for the solution that is simple enough that its palatable to a client (not asking to change your whole lifestyle, just push this button) but also relatively effective.
I personally like Mullvad's approach to something like this.
First, use their browser and VPN together (browser was co-developed with the Tor Project folks),
In the VPN, you want to turn on DAITA. It's an interesting concept and I hope more legit projects like Mullvad start doing these things.
They're essentially adding bunk data to your VPN traffic to hide you from any AI analysis that might use only your throughput to identify you and your habits.
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I personally like Mullvad's approach to something like this.
First, use their browser and VPN together (browser was co-developed with the Tor Project folks),
In the VPN, you want to turn on DAITA. It's an interesting concept and I hope more legit projects like Mullvad start doing these things.
They're essentially adding bunk data to your VPN traffic to hide you from any AI analysis that might use only your throughput to identify you and your habits.
try creepjs with mullvad browser, 100% traceable. it will always know it was you even if you clean the identity and restart the browser. and I bet googles tracking is even more advanced.
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I think you're missing the point of a free market, I'm not advocating for exploiting people, I'm simply agreeing with the concept of having a good idea or a strong work ethic to generate your own wealth, WITHOUT exploiting peoples' civil liberties. The part I disagree with as is illustrated by massive corporations like Google, is when they center their business model around the concept of stealing and marketing peoples' personal information. There are in fact ways you can make a living without negatively impacting others.
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Could I use a VPN to some place in the EU in order to have the different ToS
That might be possible, but Im not 100℅.
If they already have your fingerprint in the browser or device, they might not care. Idk.
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try creepjs with mullvad browser, 100% traceable. it will always know it was you even if you clean the identity and restart the browser. and I bet googles tracking is even more advanced.
Can you elaborate? When I'm using Mullvad Browser+VPN, have DAITA and Multi-hop on, it doesn't know who I am at all.
Since this is a VPN, there are a ton of visits with this FP ID, and the FP ends up calculating differently (and I get different visits results, trust scores) whenever I refresh my session in the browser, or even just reconnect the VPN.
The other data on the page are all completely generic guesses at my system, monitor size, etc. and maybe 10% of that info is accurate to my system.
When I do this with only the VPN and Firefox, then the data is a lot more consistent between refreshes, incognito mode, etc. and the FP ID is pretty much the same every time in Firefox.
The other data taking guesses at my system are also more accurate when using regular ol' Firefox.
I've read through the docs, and several other articles, that explain more about creepjs, but I culd be misunderstanding something somewhere I guess.
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I think you're missing the point of a free market, I'm not advocating for exploiting people, I'm simply agreeing with the concept of having a good idea or a strong work ethic to generate your own wealth, WITHOUT exploiting peoples' civil liberties. The part I disagree with as is illustrated by massive corporations like Google, is when they center their business model around the concept of stealing and marketing peoples' personal information. There are in fact ways you can make a living without negatively impacting others.
How old are you? Anybody who has worked in the current climate knows you don't get ahead just by working hard. I have worked hard for over a decade now, and im still just an employee at company Z with employee number 12345. This idea that working hard will get you somewhere is naive as fuck.
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How old are you? Anybody who has worked in the current climate knows you don't get ahead just by working hard. I have worked hard for over a decade now, and im still just an employee at company Z with employee number 12345. This idea that working hard will get you somewhere is naive as fuck.
I'm the first one in my family to start building any semblance of generational wealth for my kids, you CAN do that by working hard and being smart with your money, you don't have to back stab people to accrue wealth. I'm not planning on being a multimillionaire, and I don't need money to be happy. But you can invest yourself and your earnings in industries that you personally believe in, that also improve your community. I'm very meticulous with who I decide to do business with, I personally despise mega corporations that monopolize markets. All I'm saying is that it is possible to believe in a free market without exploiting your fellow statesmen.
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uBO exists.
You don’t get the point, do you? I know I can block those, yet it’s hypocritical to complain about privacy and tracking in an article while doing the same. It’s not even the fact they use cookies at all, I get they might need them for analytics and such. But this site is out of control
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Can you elaborate? When I'm using Mullvad Browser+VPN, have DAITA and Multi-hop on, it doesn't know who I am at all.
Since this is a VPN, there are a ton of visits with this FP ID, and the FP ends up calculating differently (and I get different visits results, trust scores) whenever I refresh my session in the browser, or even just reconnect the VPN.
The other data on the page are all completely generic guesses at my system, monitor size, etc. and maybe 10% of that info is accurate to my system.
When I do this with only the VPN and Firefox, then the data is a lot more consistent between refreshes, incognito mode, etc. and the FP ID is pretty much the same every time in Firefox.
The other data taking guesses at my system are also more accurate when using regular ol' Firefox.
I've read through the docs, and several other articles, that explain more about creepjs, but I culd be misunderstanding something somewhere I guess.
I use mullvad vpn, and I tested with mullvad browser, and it always detects me. doesn't even matter if I use daita etc...something gives me away. unique fp and it sticks between refreshes and restarts. I recall my gpu being one giveaway but I'll have to check that again tomorrow.
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I use mullvad vpn, and I tested with mullvad browser, and it always detects me. doesn't even matter if I use daita etc...something gives me away. unique fp and it sticks between refreshes and restarts. I recall my gpu being one giveaway but I'll have to check that again tomorrow.
Interesting. I'm very curious at what could be causing the discrepancy between our results!
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You don’t get the point, do you? I know I can block those, yet it’s hypocritical to complain about privacy and tracking in an article while doing the same. It’s not even the fact they use cookies at all, I get they might need them for analytics and such. But this site is out of control
Ah, ok, I see.
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Interesting. I'm very curious at what could be causing the discrepancy between our results!
so out of the box it blends in, but it still knows me even after cleaning the identity. in prediction section almost everything is red 0%, and it seems to know the browser is lying. if I use dark reader, I am unique.
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so out of the box it blends in, but it still knows me even after cleaning the identity. in prediction section almost everything is red 0%, and it seems to know the browser is lying. if I use dark reader, I am unique.
Interesting, thanks for coming back with some info. It brings up more questions, but I understand if you don't want to dive deeper. No worries!
Just to make sure we aren't testing two separate systems, I am using the site hosted on GitHub from the maintainer: https://abrahamjuliot.github.io/creepjs/
What operating system are you running? I see some discourse online about even Tor being identified as long as it's run on Windows 11, but in Linux it is not identified.
https://old.reddit.com/r/TOR/comments/113ukg9/is_creepjs_able_to_break_tor_antifingerprinting/
Under prediction, what is the crowd-blending score you see? In mullvad, I see 75% (C), in my other browsers I see 60% or less (D/F). Admittedly, I don't fully understand this section too much. I was under the impression that 0% here was a good thing, but the way you described it is the opposite. Trying to locate clarification on this and will edit when/if I find it.
And just to round it out, I'm curious what you see for the visits count at the top, and when the first visit was. When I'm in Mullvad, the visits count is almost touching 1000, and the first visit was at the beginning of January. These are definitely not me, as I have only run the test a handful of times, and yesterday was the first time I had ever used or heard of creepjs.
I still think there is potentially something I am misunderstanding about creepjs, so I may be wrong here. From what I understand, if the FP ID changes, visits is at 1, and first visit is timestamped right now, then you likely have been identified. The FP ID changing or remaining the same doesn't really indicate anything without the context of the rest of the data, especially the visits counter. It's clear that I am being lumped in with many, many other users.
Lastly, I think that you are making yourself standout from the crowd by manually installing the dark reader plugin (I assume that's what you meant). That defeats the purpose and is likely why you are being identified so quickly. There's a reason why Mullvad and Tor don't make it easy to install plugins, and also why they recommend not maximizing the browser window. Tor actually specifically forces the viewport to be a specific resolution, even if you maximize (mullvad does not). This makes you look even more like everyone else, because out-of-the-box you are configured the same as everyone else. As soon as you add anything unique, you become unique.
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Exactly, Google even advocated against the use of more intrusive tracking technology like fingerprinting stating it was too intrusive, I'll be the first to say I'm pro capitalist (if you can work hard and get rich, power to you), but when you are willing to invade the literal physical privacy of people who do not even want your products, it calls into question the legitimacy of your company.
I appreciate that you are standing for moral dignities like personal privacy. But understand, Google's entire business model IS surveillance capitalism.
Profits aren't infinite if the resource is finite. Eventually, they would have to dig the mineshaft deeper, take more material to sell more product. This is what happens when capital is left laissez-faire, it grows more tentacles.
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You don’t get the point, do you? I know I can block those, yet it’s hypocritical to complain about privacy and tracking in an article while doing the same. It’s not even the fact they use cookies at all, I get they might need them for analytics and such. But this site is out of control
Exactly. Just using an adblocker is like tying on a blindfold and claiming that the minefield has no landmines.
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Came across this article and it got me thinking, are there any simple ways to defeat advanced tracking methods (fingerprinting, tracking pixels, etc.)?
Obviously you could go the Tor on a virtual machine route, or a non persistent set up like TAILS, but what about a browser that's able to give say, a 80% solution?
I work in the security industry and am always looking for the solution that is simple enough that its palatable to a client (not asking to change your whole lifestyle, just push this button) but also relatively effective.
The only thing i use google for is lens and couldnt find a good replacement for it,Tineye is subpar.
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Interesting, thanks for coming back with some info. It brings up more questions, but I understand if you don't want to dive deeper. No worries!
Just to make sure we aren't testing two separate systems, I am using the site hosted on GitHub from the maintainer: https://abrahamjuliot.github.io/creepjs/
What operating system are you running? I see some discourse online about even Tor being identified as long as it's run on Windows 11, but in Linux it is not identified.
https://old.reddit.com/r/TOR/comments/113ukg9/is_creepjs_able_to_break_tor_antifingerprinting/
Under prediction, what is the crowd-blending score you see? In mullvad, I see 75% (C), in my other browsers I see 60% or less (D/F). Admittedly, I don't fully understand this section too much. I was under the impression that 0% here was a good thing, but the way you described it is the opposite. Trying to locate clarification on this and will edit when/if I find it.
And just to round it out, I'm curious what you see for the visits count at the top, and when the first visit was. When I'm in Mullvad, the visits count is almost touching 1000, and the first visit was at the beginning of January. These are definitely not me, as I have only run the test a handful of times, and yesterday was the first time I had ever used or heard of creepjs.
I still think there is potentially something I am misunderstanding about creepjs, so I may be wrong here. From what I understand, if the FP ID changes, visits is at 1, and first visit is timestamped right now, then you likely have been identified. The FP ID changing or remaining the same doesn't really indicate anything without the context of the rest of the data, especially the visits counter. It's clear that I am being lumped in with many, many other users.
Lastly, I think that you are making yourself standout from the crowd by manually installing the dark reader plugin (I assume that's what you meant). That defeats the purpose and is likely why you are being identified so quickly. There's a reason why Mullvad and Tor don't make it easy to install plugins, and also why they recommend not maximizing the browser window. Tor actually specifically forces the viewport to be a specific resolution, even if you maximize (mullvad does not). This makes you look even more like everyone else, because out-of-the-box you are configured the same as everyone else. As soon as you add anything unique, you become unique.
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yup that's the same thing I was using.
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I use linux mint, haven't tried it on any windows system. tried on my phone and no browser can beat it, I'm totally 100% unique.
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score is 75% for me too. on any other browser it's 27%, even without any extensions so this is still a lot better. oh and I just assumed 0% was bad because it's shown in red, but if it's the opposite then js engine and mimetypes are the big giveaways as they have 50 and 20%.
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it started at 55 and has been alive for a month. before I changed something in the settings it was 300. it still counts up when I refresh, open in a new tab, restart or even clean identity. can't fool it.
I suppose it wouldn't matter as long as it confuses me with a few others too, I'm just not convinced it can fool google and meta.
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yup that's the same thing I was using.
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I use linux mint, haven't tried it on any windows system. tried on my phone and no browser can beat it, I'm totally 100% unique.
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score is 75% for me too. on any other browser it's 27%, even without any extensions so this is still a lot better. oh and I just assumed 0% was bad because it's shown in red, but if it's the opposite then js engine and mimetypes are the big giveaways as they have 50 and 20%.
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it started at 55 and has been alive for a month. before I changed something in the settings it was 300. it still counts up when I refresh, open in a new tab, restart or even clean identity. can't fool it.
I suppose it wouldn't matter as long as it confuses me with a few others too, I'm just not convinced it can fool google and meta.
I'm just not convinced it can fool google and meta
Yea, this is a great and healthy skepticism to have. It's why I went deep on this little research tangent.
Besides browser fingerprinting, there are many other ways to tie you to online behavior. For instance, the DAITA thing has nothing to do with browser fingerprints, but specifically the size of your inbound and outbound traffic. The NSA uses that to figure out your behavior and link on-VPN and off-VPN traffic together with great success, regardless of how many hops you go through. It's the behavior that gives you away.
I'm always on my VPN, reconnect at random times, and have all the extras turned on. Something else that may be a factor is that I have Mullvad Browser installed via Flatpak and is sandboxed to hell. Maybe you installed via .deb or something in Mint?
Any way, thanks again for humoring me in this! I think you're right that at least you are sorta getting lumped in with others, but it's never going to be 100% foolproof and we should all plan for that.
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