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Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

blog.mozilla.org

41–50 of 411 posts

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#41
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The choice is so easy. Mozilla's main problem is manufactured outrage over some risky/mediocre product management, some bugs (never shipped a bug before?). Google's main problem is trying to remake the entire internet in their image, end-to-end, from optic nerve to server silicon. I'll choose the lesser of two evils, please.

With Google's Chrome I know whom I give my privacy to. With Firefox I am one update away from being part of an experiment without my consent. I take the known evil every time.

I very much doubt that you know all the parties to whom you are constantly being sold by Google. You do realize that Google does not benefit from keeping your info to themselves, right?

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#42
post #15

Can someone paste their results (or at least bits of fingerprinting entropy) from https://panopticlick.eff.org with the latest Firefox? With the fancy new anti-fingerprinting Safari on macOS Mojave I get just over 14.5 bits of entropy with the most entropic source being my canvas fingerprint (1 in 600). With Safari on iOS I get 11.71 bits of entropy, with the most entropic value being my screen size and color depth.

Interestingly enough, uBlock Origin actually stops that site from working, seems to break the fingerprinting step. If i disable uBlock, I get 16.63 bits of identifying information. Likewise the canvas fingerprint is the biggest, in my case 1 in 101154.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#43
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The choice is so easy. Mozilla's main problem is manufactured outrage over some risky/mediocre product management, some bugs (never shipped a bug before?). Google's main problem is trying to remake the entire internet in their image, end-to-end, from optic nerve to server silicon. I'll choose the lesser of two evils, please.

With Google's Chrome I know whom I give my privacy to. With Firefox I am one update away from being part of an experiment without my consent. I take the known evil every time.

The evils are by far not comparable in scope.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#44
post #15

Can someone paste their results (or at least bits of fingerprinting entropy) from https://panopticlick.eff.org with the latest Firefox? With the fancy new anti-fingerprinting Safari on macOS Mojave I get just over 14.5 bits of entropy with the most entropic source being my canvas fingerprint (1 in 600). With Safari on iOS I get 11.71 bits of entropy, with the most entropic value being my screen size and color depth.

Firefox Fingerprinting protection has nothing to do with real fingerprinting protection, and does not afffect panopticlick results in any way.

It just bloocks a couple of known scripts based on the disconnect list.

Of course they don't tell us in their marketing posts.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#45
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it may cause some websites to break and they're aiming to provide a good user-experience for the majority of the population. If they turn this on by default without users knowing the risks of sites not working correctly, they'll unfairly blame Firefox, bad mouth it, and switch to Chrome/Edge/Safari/etc.

That's the stated reason but it's pretty weak to me. Safari hasn't had to make similar compromises.

I’ve used PrivacyBadger as an extension providing a similar service and it frequently breaks as it mis-identifies important third party scripts as trackers.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#46
post #15

Can someone paste their results (or at least bits of fingerprinting entropy) from https://panopticlick.eff.org with the latest Firefox? With the fancy new anti-fingerprinting Safari on macOS Mojave I get just over 14.5 bits of entropy with the most entropic source being my canvas fingerprint (1 in 600). With Safari on iOS I get 11.71 bits of entropy, with the most entropic value being my screen size and color depth.

17.62 bits on firefox, 11.0 on Tor, 17.63 on chrome.

On firefox, the big contributors are HTTP headers (my native language is announced), hash of WebGl fingerprint and time zone.

On Tor big contributors are hash of webGL fingerprint, screen size.

On chrome, they are system fonts, hash of canvas fingerprint, user agent, and time zone.

I am not too concerned about the fingerprinting in firefox since I have strict blocking on, ublock origin, and separate containers for facebook and google. Based on the small amount of data facebook has on me, all the blocking is working pretty well.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#47

Does this just turn on the privacy.resistFingerprinting flag? I liked that flag but it set all sites to UTC time which caused me random issues..

No, this is different. This feature is a block list of known fingerprinting and cryptomining scripts. The privacy.resistFingerprinting flag changes Firefox settings that scripts use to fingerprint users, such as User-Agent string, window dimensions, and time zone (as you mentioned). The flag is enabled in Tor but not Firefox because the setting changes can break some websites or hurt performance.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#48
post #2

> You probably wouldn’t appreciate someone tracking your moves in real life. There’s no reason to accept it online. Great to read something like this on mozilla.org.

Kind of funny though, the vast majority of Mozilla's money comes from the ads and tracking industry, just one step removed.

Yes, but that is just because they represent a risk for Google. Their incentives are quite different than Google's, and that is what matters.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#49
post #42
post #15

Can someone paste their results (or at least bits of fingerprinting entropy) from https://panopticlick.eff.org with the latest Firefox? With the fancy new anti-fingerprinting Safari on macOS Mojave I get just over 14.5 bits of entropy with the most entropic source being my canvas fingerprint (1 in 600). With Safari on iOS I get 11.71 bits of entropy, with the most entropic value being my screen size and color depth.

Interestingly enough, uBlock Origin actually stops that site from working, seems to break the fingerprinting step. If i disable uBlock, I get 16.63 bits of identifying information. Likewise the canvas fingerprint is the biggest, in my case 1 in 101154.

Can anyone explain why canvas fingerprinting is so difficult to eradicate without breaking canvas?

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#50
post #15

Can someone paste their results (or at least bits of fingerprinting entropy) from https://panopticlick.eff.org with the latest Firefox? With the fancy new anti-fingerprinting Safari on macOS Mojave I get just over 14.5 bits of entropy with the most entropic source being my canvas fingerprint (1 in 600). With Safari on iOS I get 11.71 bits of entropy, with the most entropic value being my screen size and color depth.

mine is ~17. language, platform, screen size, time zone, user agent, and plugin info are the most identifying.

anyone know of a list of the most used values for these so we could lower our uniqueness by setting our browser values to them?

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