Web fingerprinting is worse than I thought (2023) • Hacker News Board

Re: Web fingerprinting is worse than I thought (2023)

#151

Post by rafram » Thu, Jul 24, 2025, 4:25 PM UTC

Beijinger wrote: post #149

rafram wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you get the exact same results in two separate incognito sessions in stock Chrome. They don't immediately add your fingerprint to their database. (And that site isn't using the state of the art in fingerprinting - check https://fingerprint.com/ for a slightly better indicator.)

https://fingerprint.com/demo/ Yes, fingerprint.com realizes that I am the same visitor. But ONLY IF I access it from the same IP address. This is impressive, but in the end not so much. They claim VPN does not matter for them. It does. Probably one of the last things that makes my browser identifiable.

> Yes, fingerprint.com realizes that I am the same visitor.

QED...

Re: Web fingerprinting is worse than I thought (2023)

#152

Post by luxuryballs » Thu, Jul 24, 2025, 4:25 PM UTC

what if I just have a script that browses random websites when I’m away and now they id my machine but the data isn’t a true reflection of anything

Re: Web fingerprinting is worse than I thought (2023)

#153

Post by Beijinger » Thu, Jul 24, 2025, 4:27 PM UTC

rafram wrote: post #151

Beijinger wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://fingerprint.com/demo/ Yes, fingerprint.com realizes that I am the same visitor. But ONLY IF I access it from the same IP address. This is impressive, but in the end not so much. They claim VPN does not matter for them. It does. Probably one of the last things that makes my browser identifiable.

> Yes, fingerprint.com realizes that I am the same visitor. QED...

Yes, based on IP address. Great achievement. I change my IP, I am unique again. And they want money for this? Nice try.

Re: Web fingerprinting is worse than I thought (2023)

#154

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 24, 2025, 4:35 PM UTC

piker wrote: post #109

9dev wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A price I’ll gladly pay in favor of increased privacy, and I haven’t heard of too many people stumped by the question. In the worst case, you can just try it out.

Yeah for folks who are viewing this site it's obvious, but my target audience doesn't have a clue for example.

[deleted]

Re: Web fingerprinting is worse than I thought (2023)

#155

Post by soruly » Thu, Jul 24, 2025, 4:36 PM UTC

owenthejumper wrote: post #144

There are legitimate use cases of fingerprinting, like bot management. Unfortunately too many people abuse the system

Yes. As a site owner who keep fighting with bots and malicious traffic, I wish web browsers provide me a way to identify real users from bot traffic. Otherwise I'll have to put everything behind account registration.

Re: Web fingerprinting is worse than I thought (2023)

#156

Post by dietr1ch » Thu, Jul 24, 2025, 4:36 PM UTC

homebrewer wrote: post #136

dietr1ch wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It always freaked me out that WhatsApp found the SMS code sent to verify the phone number without requiring any action from me. Also, WhatsApp refuses to be usable without giving it Contacts access. I had to use the app, login to the web client, and then I was finally able to type a phone number to start a new chat. I ended up uninstalling it, but there's plenty of people AND business that nowadays mainly or even onl…

If you're on Android, it's an Android API feature, it has nothing to do with WhatsApp and is used by lots of other applications. https://developers.google.com/identity/sms-retriever/overvie...

That's nice for the careless user, but without any system request or notification it's impossible for the user to tell whether the app used a workaround or the system just cooperated.

Re: Web fingerprinting is worse than I thought (2023)

#157

Post by antiframe » Thu, Jul 24, 2025, 4:36 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #129

metalliqaz wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Apple is a huge corporation and I feel confident that such an entity would happily harm any person or group of persons in the pursuit of profit.

Are there any examples?

I get the impression that Apple would rather have lower hardware manufacturing costs than ensure fair working conditions, as an example of harming people in the pursuit of profit. [1]

Perhaps that's not "bad enough" but I think the general sentiment that corporations value profits over harms to people (especially since they often try to distance themselves by offshoring, etc) applies to Apple as well.

[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-30532463

Re: Web fingerprinting is worse than I thought (2023)

#158

Post by bo1024 » Thu, Jul 24, 2025, 4:40 PM UTC

jordanb wrote: post #44

I'm considering it a good thing at this point that I'm getting captcha-walled with increasing frequency. It means that my setup and behavior looks more like the billions of anonymous bots flooding the web rather than a lucrative mark.

Same, but to access so many websites now, you have to turn on JS (i.e. turn on fingerprinting). Even for sites where this isn't on purpose, it's true because they're behind Cloudflare.

Re: Web fingerprinting is worse than I thought (2023)

#159

Post by bo1024 » Thu, Jul 24, 2025, 4:41 PM UTC

daneel_w wrote: post #89

jordanb wrote: post #44

I'm considering it a good thing at this point that I'm getting captcha-walled with increasing frequency. It means that my setup and behavior looks more like the billions of anonymous bots flooding the web rather than a lucrative mark.

You should share details on your setup.

(Different commenter, same experience)

Firefox, VPN, UBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, and UMatrix plugin to block cookies and javascript by default. (You can easily whitelist first and/or third-party cookies and/or JS on sites of your choice.)

Actually, usually librewolf instead of firefox, but not a big difference I suspect.

Re: Web fingerprinting is worse than I thought (2023)

#160

Post by mudkipdev » Thu, Jul 24, 2025, 4:51 PM UTC

bo1024 wrote: post #159

daneel_w wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should share details on your setup.

(Different commenter, same experience) Firefox, VPN, UBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, and UMatrix plugin to block cookies and javascript by default. (You can easily whitelist first and/or third-party cookies and/or JS on sites of your choice.) Actually, usually librewolf instead of firefox, but not a big difference I suspect.

+1 for librewolf