Tor is off the table for me because it’s so slow. If you can point to some test sites or documentation that supports your choice, please include!

  • fubarx@lemmy.ml
    16·
    4 days ago

    Can’t someone come up with a browser that just randomly lies when asked about the characteristics that could be used for fingerprinting?

    Except for trusted, whitelisted sites.

    That seems like it would be a pretty good privacy enhancer.

      • pHr34kY@lemmy.world
        5·
        4 days ago

        It would produce something completely different every time.

        You either need to be indistinguishable from everyone else, or indistinguishable from your last page load.

        Just randomly inserting fake fonts, changing your screen resolution by a few pixels, changing the variant of English between US, Canada, UK and Australia. Rendering text and images with unnoticeable random dither in the subpixel hinting. That sort of stuff.

        • KubeRoot@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
          1·
          3 days ago

          No, the point is… It might be obvious you’re using that specific browser, since it’d be very niche, and combined with something like your IP and maybe something like browsing patterns that might be enough to identify you.

          It doesn’t matter how much fingerprinting information you hide if you replace it with new information that’s just as useful.

    • JackAttack@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      1·
      4 days ago

      Not sure about the whitelisting part, but I think this is what Brave already does. Randomizing fingerprinted data as opposed to blending in. Makes it hard to build a profile on.

  • madame_gaymes@programming.devEnglish
    13·
    5 days ago

    Use this site to test your uniqueness in different browsers and VPN setups:

    https://abrahamjuliot.github.io/creepjs/

    I have found that Mullvad Browser + VPN (with DAITA and Multihop ON) are better than FireFox or LibreWolf. Me and another user on here went through a little back and forth comparing some things. Just follow the comment thread from here:

    https://programming.dev/comment/15090531

    (take it with a grain of salt and DYOR, we are not experts)

    Also, I love Tor, but another reason to be careful: exit nodes can be run by anyone, including bad actors and any 3-letter agency in the world. At the very least, add a VPN layer when using Tor.

    ETA: Keep in mind that it’s not just the browser that matters. Your screen size, GPU, operating system, and several other factors also add or take away from your uniqueness in terms of browser fingerprint. Basically, they less you change in the browser, the more generic and similar to everyone else you look like. The better your OS hides things from apps (for instance, in flatpak sandboxes) the better.

    ETA2: I like creepjs for testing over EFF’s tool for one main reason. EFF tells you how unique you are, theoretically. Creepjs actually takes extra steps to make a guess at whether or not the browser is lying and trying to hide from fingerprinting. That being said, might as well use both to corroborate.

    • marcie (she/her)@lemmy.ml
      2·
      4 days ago

      For the record you can exclude certain countries from your tor options. I am of the opinion that most people aren’t going to need to avoid government stuff, but if you do, exclude, say, 5 eyes countries if you live in one. It’ll make it quite hard for them to get the full picture

  • kekmacska@lemmy.zipEnglish
    10·
    4 days ago

    You need to use or spoof a browser that is used by a lot of people, and have a screen resolution (or spoof) that is common (like 1920x1080), and set the browser to only use basic fonts like times new roman, consolas. Avoid sites that use canvas, or install a canvas blocker, which basically ignores this html element when loading the page. Mitigating fingerprinting is about blending in

  • marcie (she/her)@lemmy.ml
    8·
    4 days ago

    Mullvad and Tor and it isn’t close. I use it to circumvent bans on social media when I say something too communist. Don’t alter it with addons in any way its perfect as it is.

    If google, reddit, facebook, etc. can’t figure out I’m circumventing them I consider that good enough.

    I also like Mullvad for most cases it has adblock by default which lowers the annoyances.

    Many websites will be pissy if you’re secure as possible. Tor and Mullvad browser make them very pissy often. Its best to have a backup browser for that and normal activities. Librewolf and Ungoogled Chromium are good choices there. More secure, but fingerprintable enough that sites don’t get pissy.

  • bad_news@lemmy.billiam.net
    4·
    5 days ago

    Have you tried daily driving tor recently? You can certainly get slow speeds still, but in my experience recently they’re generally not too bad most of the time, especially for things coming out of the major CDNs.

  • anon@lemmus.orgEnglish
    74·
    5 days ago

    I don’t think many people here use Brave Browser because of their crypto referral program, but they’ve made strides at mitigating fingerprinting. I use Brave Browser on my PC and Android and never had an issue.

  • InvisibleRasta@lemmy.ml
    43·
    4 days ago

    Its is pretty easy to get rid of all the brave crap. You just need a policy file:

    # cat /etc/brave/policies/managed/brave_policies.json
{
    "BraveRewardsDisabled": true,
    "BraveWalletDisabled": true,
    "BraveVPNDisabled": 1,
    "BraveAIChatEnabled": true,
    "NewTabPageLocation": "https://search.brave.com/",
    "TorDisabled": false,
    "PasswordManagerEnabled": false,
    "DnsOverHttpsMode": "automatic"
}