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Firefox expands fingerprint protections

blog.mozilla.org

81–90 of 177 posts

Re: Firefox expands fingerprint protections

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has to be a happy middle between "no protection" and "complete uniqueness" The web without ad blocking is revolting. Browsers building in these features makes them more popular. Aside: Fuck the Washington Post. They have a line in their privacy policy that acknowledges the existence of "Do Not Track" flags in browsers. Their acknowledgement: since there is no industry standard for responding to it, they ignore…

wow lmao > Do Not Track. Some web browsers may transmit a “do-not-track” signal. Because there currently is no industry standard concerning how to treat such signals, the Services currently do not take action in response to do not track signals. We respond to legally recognized browser-based opt out signals such as the Global Privacy Control signal for California residents. https://www.washingtonpost.com/privacy-poli…

[deleted]

Re: Firefox expands fingerprint protections

#82
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are actually easier to track using these addons. By installing Canvasblocker, Decentraleyes and NoScript you are providing more entropy to trackers and thus making it easier to track you. Imagine how many people worldwide block specifically Canvas, have weird looking network requests to certain js libs and have JS disabled for some (/all) scripts combined with your general setup (window size, font size, and many…

There has to be a happy middle between "no protection" and "complete uniqueness" The web without ad blocking is revolting. Browsers building in these features makes them more popular. Aside: Fuck the Washington Post. They have a line in their privacy policy that acknowledges the existence of "Do Not Track" flags in browsers. Their acknowledgement: since there is no industry standard for responding to it, they ignore…

The actual industry standard for Do Not Track is to ignore it. It is deprecated. The browser we are talking about in this post, Firefox, removed support for Do Not Track in February of this year.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Reference/...

Re: Firefox expands fingerprint protections

#83

One thing I found that broke tracking algorithms was the ‘every tab is a new random profile’ extension. I can’t remember the name as I haven’t used it in a while and it broke a lot of logins. They could not build a profile on you and it would break their system of tracking user login per device.

You probably mean Temporary Containers…? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-con...

I've recently switched from Containerise + Temporary Containers to Auto Containers. Brand new addon, but the dev is responsive and IMO it works much better for creating new containers on the fly as you browse.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/auto-containe...

https://github.com/Shajirr/FF-Auto-Containers

Re: Firefox expands fingerprint protections

#84
post #79

I exclusively use private browsing, but I know that doesn't do much in preventing tracking, so it's nice to see this finally starting to roll out. The fact that I have to go to great lengths to browse anonymously - and companies desperately try to circumvent my genuine decision to opt out of their tracking - tells me everything I need to know about those companies. Words like sleezy, shady, and predatory come to mind…

Tor? Although I wish there was a way to make a reddit account.

You might want to check out the Mullvad browser. They work with Tor and are based on Firefox. It won't connect you to the Tor network but still

Re: Firefox expands fingerprint protections

#86
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. So when you try resist fingerprinting. If you dont go all the way you're at risk of making your differentiations smaller?

As an oversimplified example: If a website has 100 visitors, and 99 of them use Chrome, and 1 user uses Firefox, it doesn't matter how good their fingerprinting resistance is, they're always the one using Firefox. https://xkcd.com/1105/

But if another Firefox user comes they are indistinguishable from each other, while every Chrome user is uniquely identifiable, are they not?

Re: Firefox expands fingerprint protections

#87
post #8

I wish them the best. When I last tested it on fingerprint.com, the hash remained stable even with resistFingerprinting and letterboxing from a VPN, only changing between profiles. When I daily-drove resistFingerprinting (not reduceFingerprinting that permits exceptions like dark mode) in 2021, my hash changed every restart.

Perhaps fingerprint.com has stepped up their detection game and have new heuristics to identify you, thwarting the resistFingerprinting measures.

My experience lately has been that fingerprint.com is able to identify my main profile "in bursts", i.e. it will identify me consistently for some days, then it will forget and tell me it's never seen me. Maybe the service they provide on the landing page has a TTL policy? Either way, I've observed this behaviour on both my main profile and my "Firefox Focus"-like profile (a mix of no history + automatic temporary containers). On Mullvad Browser, however, it always seems to group me with random access across the globe.

Re: Firefox expands fingerprint protections

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often think about this in connection with my user agent. I am sure it helps identify me. If I spoofed a Chrome/Windows UA that would probably be better from a privacy perspective. But if we all do that then web designers will never know that we exist. I want people to know there are Firefox and Linux users out there.

Spoofed UAs are easily detected. And if you are spoofing your UA you are among a very small subset of users.

Easy to detect but companies are lazy. I remember when Netflix first worked for Linux on chrome but not Firefox. I changed my agent and was good to go. After some months I emailed them asking to lift the agent block. They assured me they weren't blocking by agent. I sent them screenshots. They doubled down. So I said ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and just kept using the agent until they unblocked it

Re: Firefox expands fingerprint protections

#89
post #7
post #2

I'm already using CanvasBlocker, Decentraleyes, and the NoScript Security Suite; but getting more protections will be nice. Even if it may take a while for them to land in Waterfox.

You are actually easier to track using these addons. By installing Canvasblocker, Decentraleyes and NoScript you are providing more entropy to trackers and thus making it easier to track you. Imagine how many people worldwide block specifically Canvas, have weird looking network requests to certain js libs and have JS disabled for some (/all) scripts combined with your general setup (window size, font size, and many…

> (window size, font size, and many other factors that do not even require JS

Yeah, they require CSS, which you can also block using noscript and other tools, if you want.

Also, while you might be more "trackable" to those who fingerprint, if you are blocking those cross origin or same origin scripts from loading you are already stopping some of that. You can even blacklist some known hosts completely in your browser's policy settings and prevent those requests from ever reaching their destination.

Re: Firefox expands fingerprint protections

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of needing to know scripting for a core feature, it would be nice if I could tell the program to ask me every time I open a new window which profile that window used. Right click would have an option like their containers "opening new profile window" .

Better if they would allow some configuration like toggling js by domain. uBlock is great, but I would like first party support.

NoScript extension...
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