6 ms·

Fingerprinting seems to be a losing battle given the ever expanding browser API coupled with sites outright breaking if you disable Javascript, or blocking you

Fingerprinting seems to be a losing battle given the ever expanding browser API coupled with sites outright breaking if you disable Javascript, or blocking you as an attacker. The best strategy I can think of is compartmentalisation. Essentially use several completely separate broswers. One with Javascript, tracking and ads allowed but only used strictly for logging into GMail or banking or stuff like that. Another browser with reasonable safeguards (like say ad blocking) but nothing excessive like disabling Javascript, for authenticated sites. And finally a highly locked down browser or the Tor Browser for general "browsing" of news sites and such. This can reduce the ability for the tech giants and ad companies to track your activity outside each browser, interfering with their profile building.

willis936 5y ago
>Tor Browser I can think of no better way to guarantee you'll be put on a surveillance list of state level actors than to use Tor.
- Forbo 5y ago
  I can think of no better reason to normalize the use of Tor than to fight the chilling effects of mass surveillance.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  Depends on where you reside. In some countries (Turkey/China), Tor can get you jailed/disappeared. In pretend-democracies like here in France, that is not the case. So sure you'll be watched over to some extent. But the fact is if you don't use tor you're EVEN MORE watched over because the intelligence services have "blackboxes" (that's how they call them in law) placed on the network, and anyway your ISP is required by law to keep track of each and every move of yours for 2 years. So they know i'm using tor, so what? We're millions of people using tor, and every day there's more of us. At least they can't say i'm reading mediaslibres.org one of the only free press outlet online that's not censored by the French state. (well now they can because i just confessed, but i didn't have to)
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    > Tor can get you jailed/disappeared Citation needed.
- goodpoint 5y ago
  That's a huge oversimplification.
southerntofu 5y ago
3 may be too much. I understand the need for a dynamic application platform with a lot of tracking avenues, and the need for a static marked-up documents platform. But why something in between? Why is it acceptable for a website to require JS just to read some content? We should put more pressure on website owners to stop this nonsense.
fsflover 5y ago
> The best strategy I can think of is compartmentalisation. Essentially use several completely separate broswers. This is exactly what Qubes OS provides out of the box, including Tor Browser. Has been working for me very well.
npteljes 5y ago
I practically do this, with Firefox and the Temporary Containers addon. I have other stuff installed too so there are sites that don't work - these I open in a separate Chromium, in an Incognito window. OP, the problem with your general browser is that most sites will be broken. You'll need to do captcha before each shitty modern news piece and that's even after you told your Tor browser to enable JS and less strict security. But still, I think with compartmentalization one can make tracking reasonably hard. For now.
- drdec 5y ago
  Will Firefox containers do anything against fingerprinting however? My impression was that fingerprints was all about the specifics of the environment without utilizing a browser session. So different sessions in the same browser will have the same fingerprint. Happy to hear an explanation of why I am wrong however.
  - FalconSensei 5y ago
    > Will Firefox containers do anything against fingerprinting however? My understanding is that they do nothing. You are on the same FF version with the same preferences and extensions and all. AfAIK, the containers will only keep cookies separate
pvillano 5y ago
another option could be to create a random fingerprint for every site

willis936 5y ago

>Tor Browser I can think of no better way to guarantee you'll be put on a surveillance list of state level actors than to use Tor.

Forbo 5y ago
I can think of no better reason to normalize the use of Tor than to fight the chilling effects of mass surveillance.
southerntofu 5y ago
Depends on where you reside. In some countries (Turkey/China), Tor can get you jailed/disappeared. In pretend-democracies like here in France, that is not the case. So sure you'll be watched over to some extent. But the fact is if you don't use tor you're EVEN MORE watched over because the intelligence services have "blackboxes" (that's how they call them in law) placed on the network, and anyway your ISP is required by law to keep track of each and every move of yours for 2 years. So they know i'm using tor, so what? We're millions of people using tor, and every day there's more of us. At least they can't say i'm reading mediaslibres.org one of the only free press outlet online that's not censored by the French state. (well now they can because i just confessed, but i didn't have to)
- goodpoint 5y ago
  > Tor can get you jailed/disappeared Citation needed.
goodpoint 5y ago
That's a huge oversimplification.

southerntofu 5y ago

3 may be too much. I understand the need for a dynamic application platform with a lot of tracking avenues, and the need for a static marked-up documents platform. But why something in between? Why is it acceptable for a website to require JS just to read some content? We should put more pressure on website owners to stop this nonsense.

fsflover 5y ago

> The best strategy I can think of is compartmentalisation. Essentially use several completely separate broswers. This is exactly what Qubes OS provides out of the box, including Tor Browser. Has been working for me very well.

npteljes 5y ago

I practically do this, with Firefox and the Temporary Containers addon. I have other stuff installed too so there are sites that don't work - these I open in a separate Chromium, in an Incognito window. OP, the problem with your general browser is that most sites will be broken. You'll need to do captcha before each shitty modern news piece and that's even after you told your Tor browser to enable JS and less strict security. But still, I think with compartmentalization one can make tracking reasonably hard. For now.

drdec 5y ago
Will Firefox containers do anything against fingerprinting however? My impression was that fingerprints was all about the specifics of the environment without utilizing a browser session. So different sessions in the same browser will have the same fingerprint. Happy to hear an explanation of why I am wrong however.
- FalconSensei 5y ago
  > Will Firefox containers do anything against fingerprinting however? My understanding is that they do nothing. You are on the same FF version with the same preferences and extensions and all. AfAIK, the containers will only keep cookies separate

pvillano 5y ago

another option could be to create a random fingerprint for every site