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Privacy Analyzer – See what data is exposed from the browser
- hilbert42 6y agoAnyone who has read my recent HN posts would know that I proudly disable JavaScript in my browsers and have done so for several decades. Now Privacy Analyzer has given me yet another excellent reason to continue doing so. Without JavaScript running Privacy Analyzer WON'T EVEN START let alone give you any useful information! These tests were done on both a PC and on an android smartphone with security plug-ins/add-ons disabled and the results (given the differences in technology) were essentially the same. Note: several browsers had no plug-ins installed, only JS disabled. As I've been saying for years, the first line in defence of your privacy is to turn JavaScript off, all other protection measures, whilst useful, are of secondary importance. Moreover, Privacy Analyzer is essentially useless even with JavaScript turned on. With just one add-on (Secret Agent) running, it successfully spoofed my location (randomly put me on the other side of the world), put me on another—now incorrect—IP address, randomly changed my User Agent to nothing like the one I was using, and Privacy Analyzer didn't know my PC's processor (among other things that it had also gotten incorrect). I know I sound like a repeating scratched record about JavaScript—but don't take my word for it, just do the tests and prove what I'm saying for yourselves. BTW, if you want to do these security/privacy tests both with and without JavaScript enabled then I'd suggest you use Steve Gibson's 'ShieldsUP!' — GRC (Gibson Research Corporation) https://www.grc.com/shieldsup https://www.grc.com/shieldsup. It's been around for years and works well.