I would be interested in reading about how all of these are detected.
I know how some of them are, but not all. I predict others are in this boat, and interested in learning!
Show HN: What every browser knows about you
91–100 of 209 posts
Re: Show HN: What every browser knows about you
#92Surprised the website didn't list installed fonts anywhere. Fonts, alongside with other device details, can be a great way to fingerprint a browser/user. Edit: Actually, I believe you need Flash or a Java applet to actually get a list of fonts installed. But you can do other, slow, iterative approaches via JS.
With panopticlick, I consider lots of things very able to fingerprint users. I like that this site says it knows things about you without a previous visit. A site doesn't need to have seen you before and track you all over the web. A site can infer things from what is sent the very first time.
Of course, this isn't the first site to remind of us of that, but the reminders are still good, and interesting to learn about!
Re: Show HN: What every browser knows about you
#93This shows just how powerful JavaScript can be --- without it, the site shows nothing.
...which is not entirely correct, since your user agent, request headers, and IP are still visible. There's plenty of other sites which will show you those without requiring any client-side scripting. Here's one just from a quick Google search:
(Interestingly, you can see GoogleBot's IP and request headers if you view Google's cached version of the page.)
Re: Show HN: What every browser knows about you
#94Not sure why battery is exposed; I guess that's the result of making browsers more like OSes. The only really annoying thing is the idiotic WebRTC settings. Their love for "data channels" with zero prompts, despite having no legitimate uses[1], ignores your proxy settings. This should be fixed. 1: I asked someone involved with WebRTC. They suggested "maybe a page wants to communicate with your fridge directly" as a s…
There are some really cool uses of webrtc data channels. e.g. https://webtorrent.io/
https://snapdrop.net is also a cool use of webrtc ;)
Re: Show HN: What every browser knows about you
#95After checking out the demo, it was scary to realize that websites can access an unexpectedly large amount of information about me.
So I installed Tor with the Noscript addon and the demo was not able to access any details at all. Well it did show my ISP and hardware details, but it was wrong.
This should be the default setup in a browser, Tor+Noscript.
The issues of constant captcha harassment and slow browsing speed using this setup need to be addressed. Slow browsing can be addressed by adding more nodes to route traffic. Regarding the captcha issue though, I am not sure about a good working solution.
Re: Show HN: What every browser knows about you
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry! Didn't think about that. It is fixed.
You should also fix the copy. You have "To prevent your browser from accessing your Device Orientation use NoScript." appear twice, the second time under "Network Scan". Congrats on the page!
Thanks for the bug report! It is fixed ;)
Re: Show HN: What every browser knows about you
#97@Capira since you're so readily fixing things based on comments (awesome), here's another one. You write "To prevent your browser from accessing your Device Orientation use NoScript." under the Network Scan section. Looks like copy / pasta.
Thanks for the Feedback! Fixed. ;)
Re: Show HN: What every browser knows about you
#98Guess im adding ScriptSafe to my list of Chrome plugins (Adblock, Ghostery, HTTPS everywhere, Random Agent Spoofer),
Re: Show HN: What every browser knows about you
#99For some reason, this worked really badly when I tried it. About the only things it figured out were that I run Linux on an x86_64 system and use Firefox. Well, it did get my ISP right, so that pretty much limits my location to a single country. Even my display resolution was not right. It did find quite a few devices on my network. All of them non-existent, though.
Your browser can not connect with the other devices, unless they run a webserver.
This scanner can just detect if there are any devices.
Re: Show HN: What every browser knows about you
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shut off javascript. Yes, this will reveal sites that serve broken pages that require javascript to render usually static content (skipping progressive enhancement is lazy and unprofessional). Are those sites worth the expense of everyone learning more fingerprintable data about your and your browser? The WebRTC scan that others are complaining about is another good reason to shut off javascript. Are other sites doin…
It breaks all the single page apps. Javascript isn't the problem. Its browsers features like canvas, webrtc, etc.
> (skipping progressive enhancement is lazy and unprofessional)
Single page apps are definitely in the "lazy" category. If you send a page without content, that page is broken. You should be prioritizing the safety of your readers.
If developing proper pages is difficult with your develop0ment tools or methods, then you should find a different method - ideally something that handles the progressive enhancement for you.