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Show HN: Your Social Media Fingerprint (maybe NSFW)

robinlinus.github.io

31–40 of 258 posts

Re: Show HN: Your Social Media Fingerprint (maybe NSFW)

#32

In Chrome: Settings > Privacy > Content Settings > Tick 'Block third-party cookies and site data' Also set 'Send a "Do Not Track" request with your browsing traffic' And install uBlock Origin, ofc.

Keep in mind, uBlock Origin does not block social media widgets by default, and you have to enable it in settings. Widgets like Facebook like buttons, and Tweet buttons have to be blocked manually.

Re: Show HN: Your Social Media Fingerprint (maybe NSFW)

#34
post #23

Pretty compelling information. Two observations: 1) No LinkedIn. Are they on top of the problem? 2) I had fun results with the Epic Privacy Browser.

Couldn't find a redirect on LinkedIn that redirects without prompting you to log in again... Can you?

Re: Show HN: Your Social Media Fingerprint (maybe NSFW)

#35

In Chrome: Settings > Privacy > Content Settings > Tick 'Block third-party cookies and site data' Also set 'Send a "Do Not Track" request with your browsing traffic' And install uBlock Origin, ofc.

Personally, I don't set the DNT header.

You have no way of knowing if any sites are actually going to comply, and it actually provides an extra datapoint to fingerprint you with.

Re: Show HN: Your Social Media Fingerprint (maybe NSFW)

#36

Very good demonstration thank you. Some interesting (an unethical) potential marketing opportunities here. For example, at the bottom of articles only show share actions for social platforms they are logged into.

Why is showing only pertinent share options unethical? Or is it the cross-site circumvention that you found unethical?

Re: Show HN: Your Social Media Fingerprint (maybe NSFW)

#38
post #8

Very good demonstration thank you. Some interesting (an unethical) potential marketing opportunities here. For example, at the bottom of articles only show share actions for social platforms they are logged into.

Not logged in != doesn't have an account

For sure, but logged in == does have an account.

Re: Show HN: Your Social Media Fingerprint (maybe NSFW)

#39
This is why I use 'browser isolation', which is a way to separate different types of surfing activity into different buckets. Currently the best way to do this in Firefox is to create multiple profiles, or in Chrome, you can simply add a different user/persona.

Having one profile, or even an entire dedicated browser just for Twitter/FB ensures the login is not spilled over into other sites. If you're surfing the web heavily, I would recommend spawning a new private window so cookies, and other artefacts are not bleeding into your session.

It sounds like common sense, but many people have cookies and login information persisting for years at a time in their browsing sessions. The Mozilla Firefox team are planning to introduce a feature which makes compartmented surfing sessions a lot more user-friendly by separating sessions into tabs. Currently, the 'profiles' feature of Firefox is not user friendly and requires a bit of tinkering with the filesystem.

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