Websites can now fingerprint a device when multiple browser instances are used

Re:Websites can now fingerprint a device when multiple brows... by taf2 on Tuesday February 14, 2017 @08:09AM (#13643231)

I could be mistaken but doesn't the use of an adblocker make you even more obvious - e.g. Your fingerprint becomes more easily discernible from the rest of the Hurd, you become more obvious. Sure you could disable JavaScript but then you have basically disabled any website that depends on it which might equivalently disable the parts of the internet you wanted to access. Also it becomes obvious that your location has a broken experience. Perhaps there is a balance of blocking and blending in. My view on this is what kind of websites are you visiting that make you feel you need to disable parts of it?

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Re:Websites can now fingerprint a device when multiple brows... by sleepychu on Tuesday February 14, 2017 @08:26AM (#13643318)

So my two points are perhaps overlapping.

I don't want people to track me on the internet, I think the main reason they bother is that they can show me ads that will be more interesting to me and make them more money. I can resist this by not showing the adverts to myself.

I'd like to make it harder for them to track me at all, though this is always an arms war it seems like I'm labeling myself at the moment. I'm not familiar with the technology they use to detect adblockers, does it detect "U-Block Origin (Firefox) Ver 17.3" or does it just detect "I can't seem to see the ad I know should be here, this user is blocking my ads." if it's the latter then my proposal to adopt a blank/universal fingerprint is willing to confess the single bit of information of whether the user has decided to refuse adverts.

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Re:Websites can now fingerprint a device when multiple brows... by stymaar on Tuesday February 14, 2017 @08:45AM (#13643431)

> I could be mistaken but doesn't the use of an adblocker make you even more obvious - e.g. Your fingerprint becomes more easily discernible from the rest of the Hurd, you become more obvious.

In my generation (I'm 28), and even more in my cousins' (early twenties) it looks like the hurd is using an adblocker. And I'm talking about art students, acountants and chefs not IT engineers.

You just can't spend hours on YouTube videos without an adblocker on …

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Re:Websites can now fingerprint a device when multiple brows... by inetknght on Tuesday February 14, 2017 @11:09AM (#13644494)

> You just can't spend hours on YouTube videos without an adblocker on …

...actually, you can. But those hours won't be filled with the videos you wanted to watch. ;)

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Re:Websites can now fingerprint a device when multiple brows... by taf2 on Tuesday February 14, 2017 @02:56PM (#13646580)

You could also pay ... $9.99 a month for ad-free youtube...

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Re:Websites can now fingerprint a device when multiple brows... by stymaar on Tuesday February 14, 2017 @04:57PM (#13647590)

Not available in my country. And I'm not sure any of the aforementioned people would be willing to pay for something an adblocker provides for free.

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Re:Websites can now fingerprint a device when multiple brows... by angry_octet on Tuesday February 14, 2017 @11:25AM (#13644641)

If the browser reports that your OS is GNU Hurd you could only be RMS, so fingerprinting would be redundant.

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Re:Websites can now fingerprint a device when multiple brows... by dagenleg on Tuesday February 14, 2017 @08:24AM (#13643307)

You can just enable those parts that you need while still avoiding vast majority of bloat. At least for Firefox there's uMatrix that allows for finetuning of what exactly you want to enable/disable.

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Re:Websites can now fingerprint a device when multiple brows... by angry_octet on Tuesday February 14, 2017 @08:20AM (#13643283)

If the browser reports that your OS is GNU Hurd you could only be RMS, so fingerprinting would be redundant.

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