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Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

zdnet.com

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Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#11

Post by chrismorgan »

franky47 wrote: post #4

While I welcome another way to fight the constant tracking that we've come to know and love, this is, in my case, a break of workflow [1]. I do responsive web design, and spend a considerable amount of time resizing my browser window as a "cheap" way of previewing how it would look on narrower screens. Having the resize snap to multiples of 100 or 200px would make this experience horrible. Disabling it on localhost (…

All of these sorts of features are disabled by default, and only enabled if you enable the privacy.resistFingerprinting setting in about:config (or install an extension that does that). Among normal users, this letterboxing feature especially would upset almost everyone (though not as much as the Tor feature it’s inspired by), so I cannot imagine it ever being enabled by default.

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#12

Post by chrismorgan »

franky47 wrote: post #9
curiousgal wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not use the built-in mobile preview tool that allows you to set custom dimensions?

I also use that, but I find it faster and more straightforward to just drag the window edge, especially when devtools are not opened. One example is using browser and editor side-by-side on a single macOS split-full-screen.

You can open responsive mode via a keyboard shortcut without needing the dev tools open; on Windows it’s Ctrl+Shift+M, no idea about macOS but it’s doubtless easy to look up.

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#14

Post by strombofulous »

meruru wrote: post #13

I recommend the privacy.resistFingerpriting about:config mentioned. It's been available for a while and does other things too, like changing your user agent.

Is there any reason this isn't on by default? I don't know exactly how it works, but to my understanding anti fingerprinting tech generally works better when everyone uses it (otherwise you stick out as the "anti fingerprinting" browser)

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#15

Post by pera »

meruru wrote: post #13

I recommend the privacy.resistFingerpriting about:config mentioned. It's been available for a while and does other things too, like changing your user agent.

I've been using privacy.resistFingerprinting for a while and also recommend it, but there is one major "side effect": your reCAPTCHA score will drop to 0.1 making many websites really tedious to use. It's a price I'm willing to pay though...

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#16

Post by shakna »

strombofulous wrote: post #14
meruru wrote: post #13

I recommend the privacy.resistFingerpriting about:config mentioned. It's been available for a while and does other things too, like changing your user agent.

Is there any reason this isn't on by default? I don't know exactly how it works, but to my understanding anti fingerprinting tech generally works better when everyone uses it (otherwise you stick out as the "anti fingerprinting" browser)

It can decimate useability for the average user.

Every time you see a Captcha, you may have to do four or five to be considered "human" because the system struggles to determine who you are.

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#17

Post by anth_anm »

pera wrote: post #15
meruru wrote: post #13

I recommend the privacy.resistFingerpriting about:config mentioned. It's been available for a while and does other things too, like changing your user agent.

I've been using privacy.resistFingerprinting for a while and also recommend it, but there is one major "side effect": your reCAPTCHA score will drop to 0.1 making many websites really tedious to use. It's a price I'm willing to pay though...

Making recaptcha worthless by making it so intrusive no one will use it.

I love this idea. Recaptcha is god awful.

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#18

Post by avip »

strombofulous wrote: post #14
meruru wrote: post #13

I recommend the privacy.resistFingerpriting about:config mentioned. It's been available for a while and does other things too, like changing your user agent.

Is there any reason this isn't on by default? I don't know exactly how it works, but to my understanding anti fingerprinting tech generally works better when everyone uses it (otherwise you stick out as the "anti fingerprinting" browser)

It'll considerably deteriorate your browsing experience due to various layers of "bot detection" stalking the web.

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#19

Post by meruru »

pera wrote: post #15
meruru wrote: post #13

I recommend the privacy.resistFingerpriting about:config mentioned. It's been available for a while and does other things too, like changing your user agent.

I've been using privacy.resistFingerprinting for a while and also recommend it, but there is one major "side effect": your reCAPTCHA score will drop to 0.1 making many websites really tedious to use. It's a price I'm willing to pay though...

reCAPTCHA is a Google thing so it gets blocked in my browser already anyway (by uMatrix). If I need to load it to see a website, I close the tab immediately and go somewhere else.

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#20

Post by trumped »

cronix wrote: post #5

> The general idea is that "letterboxing" will mask the window's real dimensions by keeping the window width and height at multiples of 200px and 100px during the resize operation --generating the same window dimensions for all users-- and then adding a "gray space" at the top, bottom, left, or right of the current page. > The advertising code, which listens to window resize events, then reads the generic dimensions,…

Havent they thought about not broadcasting the window size... wtf. We are doomed apparently.
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