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the marketing department probably decided that it needs to be done and the safari engineers realized this would completely destroy usability for a majority of u

the marketing department probably decided that it needs to be done and the safari engineers realized this would completely destroy usability for a majority of users, so they quietly abandoned it. Especially as it isn't as simple as a standardized list of fonts when the Canvas hash is 100% unique for everyone. Still very disappointing.

jwandborg 7y ago
The engineering department should have told the marketing department that they didn't implement it.
saagarjha 7y ago
The Safari team has not "abandoned" this effort: they are still working on reducing the fingerprinting surface area (of recent note, Safari has removed its "do not track" preference, which was used as a fingerprinting datapoint, no longer presents installed third-party fonts to websites, and no longer supports most plugins). The issue is that they have not "solved" the issue yet.
- user17843 7y ago
  the test shows unique system fonts for me. Here's a quote: "There will also be new security measures to prevent digital fingerprinting, or the use of things like installed fonts and plug-ins to help track users across the internet even with privacy settings active. Websites will be given a stripped down, simplified system configuration so every user's Mac looks like every other user's Mac."
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    This is what my modern Safari exposes: Andale Mono, Arial, Arial Black, Arial Hebrew, Arial Narrow, Arial Rounded MT Bold, Arial Unicode MS, Comic Sans MS, Courier, Courier New, Geneva, Georgia, Helvetica, Helvetica Neue, Impact, LUCIDA GRANDE, Microsoft Sans Serif, Monaco, Palatino, Tahoma, Times, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Wingdings, Wingdings 2, Wingdings 3 (via javascript) I have hundreds more fonts installed. Panopticlick says that about 1 in 14 browsers have this value, so your browser should have it too.
    - user17843 7y ago
      I have to withdraw my original statement, Looks like I have the same set of fonts as you. So that part seems to work, I was just confused because the effect on overall uniqueness is very low. Still I applaud the efforts by the WebKit Team.
- tinus_hn 7y ago
  Intelligent Tracking Protection is a work in progress in which Apple actively checks what trackers are using and disables it. The next iOS/MacOS releases will have the next version with new restrictions on tracking. The issue will be solved when all tracking companies have collapsed and that industry is dead. Clearly we aren’t there yet.

jwandborg 7y ago

The engineering department should have told the marketing department that they didn't implement it.

saagarjha 7y ago

The Safari team has not "abandoned" this effort: they are still working on reducing the fingerprinting surface area (of recent note, Safari has removed its "do not track" preference, which was used as a fingerprinting datapoint, no longer presents installed third-party fonts to websites, and no longer supports most plugins). The issue is that they have not "solved" the issue yet.

user17843 7y ago
the test shows unique system fonts for me. Here's a quote: "There will also be new security measures to prevent digital fingerprinting, or the use of things like installed fonts and plug-ins to help track users across the internet even with privacy settings active. Websites will be given a stripped down, simplified system configuration so every user's Mac looks like every other user's Mac."
- saagarjha 7y ago
  This is what my modern Safari exposes: Andale Mono, Arial, Arial Black, Arial Hebrew, Arial Narrow, Arial Rounded MT Bold, Arial Unicode MS, Comic Sans MS, Courier, Courier New, Geneva, Georgia, Helvetica, Helvetica Neue, Impact, LUCIDA GRANDE, Microsoft Sans Serif, Monaco, Palatino, Tahoma, Times, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Wingdings, Wingdings 2, Wingdings 3 (via javascript) I have hundreds more fonts installed. Panopticlick says that about 1 in 14 browsers have this value, so your browser should have it too.
  - user17843 7y ago
    I have to withdraw my original statement, Looks like I have the same set of fonts as you. So that part seems to work, I was just confused because the effect on overall uniqueness is very low. Still I applaud the efforts by the WebKit Team.
tinus_hn 7y ago
Intelligent Tracking Protection is a work in progress in which Apple actively checks what trackers are using and disables it. The next iOS/MacOS releases will have the next version with new restrictions on tracking. The issue will be solved when all tracking companies have collapsed and that industry is dead. Clearly we aren’t there yet.