this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2024
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Privacy

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What is the lowest score you have achieved on EFF Cover Your Tracks? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by LambdaRX@sh.itjust.works to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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On Librewolf i got 16.48 bits of information, on TOR browser 10.32 bits, but on Tails I managed to get only 9.3 bits.

https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/

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[–] dwindling7373@feddit.it 17 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Am I wrong to assume trying to blend in is a worse and contradictory strategy than trying to actively protect yourself from tracking?

If you want to not be unique, use default setting chrome without adblock. Your browser will look just like anybody else's, but they will literally know who you are.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, you lock everything down and spike as a very special browser and... that's all they know.

[–] toastal@lemmy.ml 21 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Privacy vs. anonymity

[–] underwire212@lemm.ee 3 points 6 days ago

Right. The question is whether they can attach what they know to an identity. Depends on your threat model which goal you need to achieve.

[–] dwindling7373@feddit.it 2 points 6 days ago

Not what I meant: https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/wiki/3.3-Overrides-%5BTo-RFP-or-Not%5D#-fingerprinting

"If you do nothing on desktop, you are already uniquely identifiable - screen, window and font metrics alone are probably enough - add timezone name, preferred languages, and several dozen other metrics and it is game over. Here is a link to the results of a study done in 2016 showing a 99.24% unique hit rate (and that is excluding IP addresses).

Changing a few prefs from default is not going to make you "more unique" - there is no such thing."

Basically making yourself less unique is impossible so there's no sensible tradeoff to be made (other than in the context of Tor and Mullvad Browser).

[–] ivn@jlai.lu 13 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

But then they can know a lot more since they don't even need to drop a cookie to track you. But that's a different threat model.

[–] douglasg14b@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

Default Google Chrome embedded on Android with nothing configured and googled up.

17 bits.

[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 183,951 tested in the past 45 days.

Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys at least 17.49 bits of identifying information.

well shoot my mobile failed that test lmao

[–] piracysails@lemm.ee 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I got 17,49 as well!

[–] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I got exactly that number too, but also when I looked at the detailed results section lots of it was incorrect. It got that I was on some sort of Linux and using some sort of FF variant, but things like time zone, plugins, screen resolution and system fonts were all wrong.

So sending out 17.49 bits of largely identifying bullshit is still okay I think lol.

[–] piracysails@lemm.ee 3 points 6 days ago

Could it be that the browser shares false information on purpose?

[–] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 4 points 6 days ago

I got 17.5 on my Desktop Firefox lol

[–] JustVik@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It constantly gives me 17.5 bits on several browsers firefox, nyxt, gnu icecat, librewolf...

[–] LambdaRX@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 days ago

Number of bits can also depend on your UI scaling, resolution and timezone.

[–] myrrh@ttrpg.network 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

9.3 bits / 1:628.3
(ipadOS / safari)

...how do they quantify 3/10 of a bit?..

[–] LambdaRX@sh.itjust.works 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

They probably give entropy value, average number of, yes or no, questions that are needed to identify You. (Guess all the information that your browser provided)

[–] eleitl@lemm.ee 4 points 6 days ago

Vanadium: Your Results Within our dataset of several hundred thousand visitors tested in the past 45 days, only one in 61101.0 browsers have the same fingerprint as yours.

Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys 15.9 bits of identifying information.

[–] Melody@lemmy.one 1 points 5 days ago

13

[–] Zerush@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

With Vivaldi

[–] OmegaLemmy@discuss.online 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Didn't know Vivaldi had this capability, I just used it because it was the only decent browser with an on/off sidebar till zen

[–] Zerush@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 days ago

Not only the sidebar, you can tweak almost everything to your like.

[–] Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee 56 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I’m unique :) this ain’t great

[–] kusivittula@sopuli.xyz 21 points 1 week ago (7 children)

its ok if your fingerprint changes on every browser startup

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[–] Viri4thus@feddit.org 54 points 1 week ago (2 children)

If you have canvas randomisation turned on (firefox) you'll always be unique but also not traceable between sessions.

[–] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

How do you turn on canvas randomisation in Firefox? I can't seem to find anything about it.

[–] Muehe@lemmy.ml 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I found this in about:config, defaults to true apparently: privacy.resistFingerprinting.randomDataOnCanvasExtract

But you have to enable privacy.resistFingerprinting for it to work first. I enabled that and now the EFF test says "randomized" for the hashes but also Lemmy went from dark to light theme somehow.

[–] perfectly_boiled_pizza@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

privacy.resistFingerprinting breaks a lot more than just themes. Many of the weird problems reported in Firefox (and forks) are just from enabling it.

It has some pros but also TONNES of cons. Everything from a completely blank page to wrong timestamps to poor textures and so much more. Sometimes you will be flagged as a bot and prompted with literally infinite puzzles, thus effectively banning you from a website.

Some of these problems get fixed but new ones also get born. I personally use it but I also expect breakage and worse performance.

[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 11 points 1 week ago

Yup, canvas is heavily weighted in this test based on the results.

[–] ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com 27 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

With browser settings that actually let me use the internet in a way that's not overly cumbersome and annoying, I get 16bits or something and a "nearly unique fingerprint"

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[–] akkajdh999@programming.dev 19 points 1 week ago (1 children)

"Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 183,614 tested in the past 45 days.

Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys at least 17.49 bits of identifying information."

Chat am I cooked?

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[–] muhyb@programming.dev 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Despite having strong protection according to these results, I always get unique fingerprinting from them. Which is scary.

Edit: Now I tried Tor on my desktop and got:

Within our dataset of several hundred thousand visitors tested in the past 45 days, only one in 628.7 browsers have the same fingerprint as yours. Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys 9.3 bits of identifying information.

[–] mac@lemm.ee 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Huh mullvad browser got me the lowest overall. 10.44 bits and a non-unique fingerprint.

Compared against:

  • Firefox with arkenfox user.js (macOS)
  • Tor (macOS and android)
  • Vanadium (android)
  • Cromite (android)
  • Mull (different than mullvad) (android)

I do a vast majority of my browsing on my phone, unfortunately. Vanadium scored the best (on mobile), but it not having extensions (dark reader is a must) and the navigation bar not being movable to the bottom of the screen keeps me on Mull.

I don't love using mullvad for day to day browsing as I can't whitelist specific cookies to retain. Don't love having to re 2fa daily.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

12.67 from Safari/iPhone, without changing any settings. This is my most commonly used browser

[–] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 11 points 1 week ago

Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 183,996 tested in the past 45 days.

:(

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