4 ms·

I have never regretted my decision to aggressively block ads on every device I use, and to shun devices where I can't.

by Zak 7mo ago

Cider9986 7mo ago
I am not sure that ad blocking is enough now or in the future as fingerprinting is extremely hard to fight while keeping a convenient web experience. Of course, continue blocking for convenience, but for privacy, more robust solutions are needed. Try to beat this: https://fingerprint.com https://fingerprint.com
- andai 7mo ago
  Doesn't this just identify you as "that one guy who blocks fingerprinting"? It's similar to when you use Linux or an obscure privacy-preserving browser. You've made yourself way more unique just by doing that. (I'm not sure how the math works out though, vs. actually running all that nasty tracking stuff.)
  - some_furry 7mo ago
    There are dozens of us! But, yeah, anti-fingerprinting is still a useful signal if less people do it. So more people should do it; especially if they're less likely to be targeted. "More haystack" makes their job harder.
    - Aeglaecia 7mo ago
      i feel like this is the same as voting independant. it's the right idea in theory, but given the fact that 99% of people don't do it , righteousness is decreased. in this case very literally as having a unique fingerprint is entirely counter intuitive to the idea of privacy
      - some_furry 7mo ago
        It starts with you. Doesn't matter if others won't. You can't expect anything to chamge if you, yourself, are not willing to change.
        Aeglaecia 7mo ago
        I really want to be in a world where that's true. in the meantime we live in a zero sum survival of the fittest game where the powerful execute the weak for insubordination. in this world it is often necessary to take roundabout paths to reach the objective. for example, a constitutional representative in my country attempted to place restrictions on unfettered gambling advertisements. a single day later, photos emerged of that politician having dressed as a nazi for a costume party in his youth. that politician stood up for what was right and then got fired for it, by losing his job and his status in the court of public opinion, effectively achieving no change. exacting change isnt always such a simple process as embodying the end result.
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
- LPisGood 7mo ago
  iPhone with private relay seems to defeat that
- Zak 7mo ago
  I beat it with Firefox, UBO, standard Firefox advanced tracking protection, and a VPN. It was able to track me as long as my IP address didn't change, but as soon as I switched VPN endpoints, it gave me a new identifier.
  - drnick1 7mo ago
    Same thing here (Firefox + Arkenfox + uBlock Origin). Need to change the IP to beat the fingerprinter, but that is just how the Internet works and the browser itself cannot do anything about it.
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
- PostOnce 7mo ago
  Beginning to wonder if convenience is the root of all evil, and not money. Money's just a proxy for convenience. More of us should learn to do things the hard way more often, and to be familiar with less-convenient things. There are life-changing advantages to doing things the hard way at least some of the time.
  - noosphr 7mo ago
    The root of all evil is that we don't have a functioning micro transaction network and we don't know how to build one. For the user there is no way to pay the 0.0000001c that it takes to load a web page, for the web master there is no way to get paid the $10,000 it takes to serve the users. So we settled on advertising which can somewhat cover those costs since each individual add is basically worthless but an add campaign isn't.
    - landgenoot 7mo ago
      The lightning network supports transactions starting from 1 Satoshi. One Satoshi is currently worth $0.000713.
      - noosphr 7mo ago
        So what's the transaction fees to make 1e9 one satoshi payments and how long until they clear?
      - guiambros 7mo ago
        And how do you actually identify who should pay that $0.000713? And who should receive it? How do you make the process effortless, so the user doesn't have to spend 5 minutes registering on a website, just to send $0.000713? Now make it work 10,000 times per day, for every page you visit, posts, news, short form content you scroll, long form video you watch. And multiply this by billions of users. And once you've done that, how do you deal with spam, bots? How do you prevent invalid traffic? Fraudulent chargebacks? And how do you take quality into consideration (NYT prob want to charge more than my crappy personal blog)? Transferring money is one small element of large and complex equation. Advertising is not perfect, but it's the best alternative for a free and open web I have seen in my 30+ years online. Subscription works for large ticket items (and for the affluent minority), but it doesn't solve the other 95% of cases.
- allthetime 7mo ago
  What does "try to beat this" mean? I just opened it in another browser and got another ID. Did I win? For some reason using Microsoft Edge is deemed suspicious.
  - SmirkingRevenge 7mo ago
    Fingerprinting generally tries to identify a unique browser, so a new browser will get a new identifier. But depending on the data tied to the fingerprints, identifiers can be linked together.
- giobox 7mo ago
  The EFF's fingerprint test is nice in that it breaks down a lot of the bits of data used, and lets you know how you compare etc: > https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ You quickly discover how difficult it really is to avoid a unique fingerprint. Lots of folks in this thread are focusing on DNS and VPN to avoid detection, which of course can help, but a huge number of identifiable bits come from your browser's APIs: User Agent Screen Size and Color Depth System Fonts Hash of canvas fingerprint Hash of WebGL fingerprint WebGL Vendor & Renderer Touch Support AudioContext fingerprint Hardware Concurrency Device Memory Platform Language Timezone Timezone offset Browser Plugin Details etc etc
  - Scrounger 7mo ago
    > https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ I get "Our tests indicate that you have some protection against Web tracking, but it has some gaps." but nothing of too much importance I think. I use a VPN and NextDNS.io.
    - giobox 7mo ago
      The real test is whether the site believes you to be unique, which is listed separately. It reports me as "Our tests indicate that you have strong protection against Web tracking.", but I'm still uniquely identifiable.
  - dakolli 7mo ago
    Do not trust the EFF !!!
  - Mars008 7mo ago
    In Tor got: "Our tests indicate that you have you have strong protection against Web tracking." In normal Firefox: "uBlock Origin has prevented the following page from loading: https://eviltracker.net/kcarter-reporting-nojs?a= https://eviltracker.net/kcarter-reporting-nojs?a=" In normal Firefox with 'real tracking company' ON (default): "uBlock Origin has prevented the following page from loading: https://trackersimulator.org/kcarter-reporting-nojs https://trackersimulator.org/kcarter-reporting-nojs" Sort of failed?
- OhioMan2943 7mo ago
  Use Mullvad Browser or Brave (both require no extensions to block ads, with mullvad browser being modelled off of tor. Use data traffic fingerprint obfuscation even behind vpn (yes they can tell if you're messaging, watching a video, torrenting, etc 90% of the time even behind vpn) use mullvads daita (makes packets the same size) or nymvpn (mixnet with tor like routing and in built delays). Tor doesn't protect against traffic analysis at all.
- Scrounger 7mo ago
  > Try to beat this: https://fingerprint.com https://fingerprint.com I beat it, I think... nothing much there. I use a VPN and NextDNS.io.
  - dakolli 7mo ago
    you can't beat it with a VPN, or any sort of networking only solution, only your browser can prevent fingerprinting. The hash is generated on a combination of heuristics but usually based on canvas fingerprinting. Network fingerprinting is not reliable. https://browserleaks.com/ https://browserleaks.com/
- newscracker 7mo ago
  > Try to beat this: https://fingerprint.com https://fingerprint.com I don’t know, but it seems like it’s overselling its capabilities. I tried with Firefox Focus and it said I’m using incognito (private mode) and assigned a unique visitor ID. Immediately tried with a private tab in Safari on iOS and it said I’m not using incognito (private mode) and assigned a new unique visitor ID. Then I switched networks and tried. One more unique visitor ID. I’m not claiming that fingerprinting is not possible, but this website is not good at it. Seems like it uses plain cookies.
- pabs3 7mo ago
  "Enable JS to run the demo"
UltraSane 7mo ago
The Web is utterly unusable without uBlock Origin.
- trinsic2 7mo ago
  I cant see how people use the net without it.. My wife gets all these ad popups and she is so use to it that it doesn't even register until I point it out.
- SmirkingRevenge 7mo ago
  Honestly, ublock isn't even enough anymore. DNS sinkholes are the next layer, since they work device-wide. I use nextdns.io, and it's good enough that I just keep ublock around in case I need to disable nextdns for some reason.
  - dakolli 7mo ago
    How is DNS going to prevent javascript/css/tls fingerprinting? Its a good thing to do, but its not preventing you from being identified and tracked.
  - UltraSane 7mo ago
    I use Mullvad DNS with ad and malware filtering.
- dakolli 7mo ago
  uBlock Origin does not protect you from this, this is a fingerprinting problem. You need to use a fingerprinting resistant browser. And even then, there are new fingerprinting methods emerging frequently and you can't prevent fingerprinting from inside apps on android/iOs.. Most slop mobile applications, that many people have on their phones are basically spyware pretending to be games/whatever. Programatic advertising technology was created for intelligence purposes, these companies and their methods are very sophisticated.
  - drnick1 7mo ago
    > you can't prevent fingerprinting from inside apps on android/iOs.. Another good reason to run Graphene without proprietary apps.
monster_truck 7mo ago
You will also want to turn off things like weather widgets, basically anything that hits an external service.

I have never regretted my decision to aggressively block ads on every device I use, and to shun devices where I can't.

by Zak 7mo ago

I have never regretted my decision to aggressively block ads on every device I use, and to shun devices where I can't.

I am not sure that ad blocking is enough now or in the future as fingerprinting is extremely hard to fight while keeping a convenient web experience. Of course, continue blocking for convenience, but for privacy, more robust solutions are needed. Try to beat this: https://fingerprint.com https://fingerprint.com

andai 7mo ago
Doesn't this just identify you as "that one guy who blocks fingerprinting"? It's similar to when you use Linux or an obscure privacy-preserving browser. You've made yourself way more unique just by doing that. (I'm not sure how the math works out though, vs. actually running all that nasty tracking stuff.)
- some_furry 7mo ago
  There are dozens of us! But, yeah, anti-fingerprinting is still a useful signal if less people do it. So more people should do it; especially if they're less likely to be targeted. "More haystack" makes their job harder.
  - Aeglaecia 7mo ago
    i feel like this is the same as voting independant. it's the right idea in theory, but given the fact that 99% of people don't do it , righteousness is decreased. in this case very literally as having a unique fingerprint is entirely counter intuitive to the idea of privacy
    - some_furry 7mo ago
      It starts with you. Doesn't matter if others won't. You can't expect anything to chamge if you, yourself, are not willing to change.
      - Aeglaecia 7mo ago
        I really want to be in a world where that's true. in the meantime we live in a zero sum survival of the fittest game where the powerful execute the weak for insubordination. in this world it is often necessary to take roundabout paths to reach the objective. for example, a constitutional representative in my country attempted to place restrictions on unfettered gambling advertisements. a single day later, photos emerged of that politician having dressed as a nazi for a costume party in his youth. that politician stood up for what was right and then got fired for it, by losing his job and his status in the court of public opinion, effectively achieving no change. exacting change isnt always such a simple process as embodying the end result.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
LPisGood 7mo ago
iPhone with private relay seems to defeat that
Zak 7mo ago
I beat it with Firefox, UBO, standard Firefox advanced tracking protection, and a VPN. It was able to track me as long as my IP address didn't change, but as soon as I switched VPN endpoints, it gave me a new identifier.
- drnick1 7mo ago
  Same thing here (Firefox + Arkenfox + uBlock Origin). Need to change the IP to beat the fingerprinter, but that is just how the Internet works and the browser itself cannot do anything about it.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
PostOnce 7mo ago
Beginning to wonder if convenience is the root of all evil, and not money. Money's just a proxy for convenience. More of us should learn to do things the hard way more often, and to be familiar with less-convenient things. There are life-changing advantages to doing things the hard way at least some of the time.
- noosphr 7mo ago
  The root of all evil is that we don't have a functioning micro transaction network and we don't know how to build one. For the user there is no way to pay the 0.0000001c that it takes to load a web page, for the web master there is no way to get paid the $10,000 it takes to serve the users. So we settled on advertising which can somewhat cover those costs since each individual add is basically worthless but an add campaign isn't.
  - landgenoot 7mo ago
    The lightning network supports transactions starting from 1 Satoshi. One Satoshi is currently worth $0.000713.
    - noosphr 7mo ago
      So what's the transaction fees to make 1e9 one satoshi payments and how long until they clear?
    - guiambros 7mo ago
      And how do you actually identify who should pay that $0.000713? And who should receive it? How do you make the process effortless, so the user doesn't have to spend 5 minutes registering on a website, just to send $0.000713? Now make it work 10,000 times per day, for every page you visit, posts, news, short form content you scroll, long form video you watch. And multiply this by billions of users. And once you've done that, how do you deal with spam, bots? How do you prevent invalid traffic? Fraudulent chargebacks? And how do you take quality into consideration (NYT prob want to charge more than my crappy personal blog)? Transferring money is one small element of large and complex equation. Advertising is not perfect, but it's the best alternative for a free and open web I have seen in my 30+ years online. Subscription works for large ticket items (and for the affluent minority), but it doesn't solve the other 95% of cases.
allthetime 7mo ago
What does "try to beat this" mean? I just opened it in another browser and got another ID. Did I win? For some reason using Microsoft Edge is deemed suspicious.
- SmirkingRevenge 7mo ago
  Fingerprinting generally tries to identify a unique browser, so a new browser will get a new identifier. But depending on the data tied to the fingerprints, identifiers can be linked together.
giobox 7mo ago
The EFF's fingerprint test is nice in that it breaks down a lot of the bits of data used, and lets you know how you compare etc: > https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ You quickly discover how difficult it really is to avoid a unique fingerprint. Lots of folks in this thread are focusing on DNS and VPN to avoid detection, which of course can help, but a huge number of identifiable bits come from your browser's APIs: User Agent Screen Size and Color Depth System Fonts Hash of canvas fingerprint Hash of WebGL fingerprint WebGL Vendor & Renderer Touch Support AudioContext fingerprint Hardware Concurrency Device Memory Platform Language Timezone Timezone offset Browser Plugin Details etc etc
- Scrounger 7mo ago
  > https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ I get "Our tests indicate that you have some protection against Web tracking, but it has some gaps." but nothing of too much importance I think. I use a VPN and NextDNS.io.
  - giobox 7mo ago
    The real test is whether the site believes you to be unique, which is listed separately. It reports me as "Our tests indicate that you have strong protection against Web tracking.", but I'm still uniquely identifiable.
- dakolli 7mo ago
  Do not trust the EFF !!!
- Mars008 7mo ago
  In Tor got: "Our tests indicate that you have you have strong protection against Web tracking." In normal Firefox: "uBlock Origin has prevented the following page from loading: https://eviltracker.net/kcarter-reporting-nojs?a= https://eviltracker.net/kcarter-reporting-nojs?a=" In normal Firefox with 'real tracking company' ON (default): "uBlock Origin has prevented the following page from loading: https://trackersimulator.org/kcarter-reporting-nojs https://trackersimulator.org/kcarter-reporting-nojs" Sort of failed?
OhioMan2943 7mo ago
Use Mullvad Browser or Brave (both require no extensions to block ads, with mullvad browser being modelled off of tor. Use data traffic fingerprint obfuscation even behind vpn (yes they can tell if you're messaging, watching a video, torrenting, etc 90% of the time even behind vpn) use mullvads daita (makes packets the same size) or nymvpn (mixnet with tor like routing and in built delays). Tor doesn't protect against traffic analysis at all.
Scrounger 7mo ago
> Try to beat this: https://fingerprint.com https://fingerprint.com I beat it, I think... nothing much there. I use a VPN and NextDNS.io.
- dakolli 7mo ago
  you can't beat it with a VPN, or any sort of networking only solution, only your browser can prevent fingerprinting. The hash is generated on a combination of heuristics but usually based on canvas fingerprinting. Network fingerprinting is not reliable. https://browserleaks.com/ https://browserleaks.com/
newscracker 7mo ago
> Try to beat this: https://fingerprint.com https://fingerprint.com I don’t know, but it seems like it’s overselling its capabilities. I tried with Firefox Focus and it said I’m using incognito (private mode) and assigned a unique visitor ID. Immediately tried with a private tab in Safari on iOS and it said I’m not using incognito (private mode) and assigned a new unique visitor ID. Then I switched networks and tried. One more unique visitor ID. I’m not claiming that fingerprinting is not possible, but this website is not good at it. Seems like it uses plain cookies.
pabs3 7mo ago
"Enable JS to run the demo"

UltraSane 7mo ago

The Web is utterly unusable without uBlock Origin.

trinsic2 7mo ago
I cant see how people use the net without it.. My wife gets all these ad popups and she is so use to it that it doesn't even register until I point it out.
SmirkingRevenge 7mo ago
Honestly, ublock isn't even enough anymore. DNS sinkholes are the next layer, since they work device-wide. I use nextdns.io, and it's good enough that I just keep ublock around in case I need to disable nextdns for some reason.
- dakolli 7mo ago
  How is DNS going to prevent javascript/css/tls fingerprinting? Its a good thing to do, but its not preventing you from being identified and tracked.
- UltraSane 7mo ago
  I use Mullvad DNS with ad and malware filtering.
dakolli 7mo ago
uBlock Origin does not protect you from this, this is a fingerprinting problem. You need to use a fingerprinting resistant browser. And even then, there are new fingerprinting methods emerging frequently and you can't prevent fingerprinting from inside apps on android/iOs.. Most slop mobile applications, that many people have on their phones are basically spyware pretending to be games/whatever. Programatic advertising technology was created for intelligence purposes, these companies and their methods are very sophisticated.
- drnick1 7mo ago
  > you can't prevent fingerprinting from inside apps on android/iOs.. Another good reason to run Graphene without proprietary apps.

monster_truck 7mo ago

You will also want to turn off things like weather widgets, basically anything that hits an external service.