News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Browser Fingerprinting: A Survey. Parent comment

Re:Browser Fingerprinting: A Survey by modzu on Monday May 06, 2019 @08:58AM (#19838981)
thats like saying programs should go away if its not implementable by the OS. its just a different layer. browser plugins are tremendously useful

edit: also your comment seems to imply that plugins are used for websites trying to do something the browser doesnt support (ex flash) -- while this is sometimes done, most plugins add additional functionality for the user, ex adblockers, usability improvements, etc

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Browser Fingerprinting: A Survey by kalleboo on Monday May 06, 2019 @09:17AM (#19839108)
Plugins and extensions are different things.

The `navigator.plugins` used for fingerprinting is just for NPAPI/PPAPI stuff like Flash, Java, Silverlight. Just about all browsers are also in the process of deprecating support for them.

(it can also be possible to fingerprint browser extensions, but that is a bit trickier as it's not served up directly by the browser as a handy array)

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Browser Fingerprinting: A Survey by modzu on Monday May 06, 2019 @12:50PM (#19841212)
oh yes my bad, thanks. i was thinking extensions (maybe thanks to all the ff news!). wrt fingerpritning plugins, it seems to be the least of the issues and hopefully not an issue for long :)
[ Parent | on HN ]