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Comment by lucb1e | Hacker News Reader

I feel like my Linux user agent is nearly trackable across IP addresses, so few people I know run Linux with Firefox version whatever... but yeah same here: cookies are a non-issue for me. I use a different solution though: self-destructing cookies. Once you closed a tab for more than X seconds (I configured 90 seconds I think), it deletes all cookies (and localstorage etc.) from that domain.

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> and localstorage

Just a warning: not if you have enabled multiprocessing.

SDC (and other similar addons) can't monitor LocalStorage when e10s is on, only cookies. (Source: "Frequently Asked Questions and Common Problems" at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/self-destruct...)

As a Firefox on Linux user I checked one of those sites that tries to estimate how many bits each public aspect of your setup reveals about you. It turned out available fonts was by far the most unique aspect of my setup.

Could you share a link to this site?

I suppose it was https://panopticlick.eff.org

One thing I don't really like about that site is that it gives browsers worse scores for not unblocking third parties which promise to honor do not track. Surely you're more safe when you don't trust anyone instead of trusting that third parties which honor DNT actually honor it. It kind of reeks of pushing an agenda, which would have been okay (it's the EFF after all) if the tool didn't claim to score your browser on how well it protects you from tracking.

The only surefire way is to disable javascript, extensions, cookies, etc. https://browserleaks.com has a pretty good breakdown of the different techniques you can use. There's another JS technique that probes the hardware to fingerprint a browser too.

http://yinzhicao.org/TrackingFree/crossbrowsertracking_NDSS1...

Use Tor Browser even if your not using Tor if you're looking for better privacy. It's modified to mitigate as much as possible. Facebook is just bad. Avoid it at all costs if you value privacy. And it's not just facebook. Sites like facebook, google, etc also use several 3rd party "advertising" (i.e. data gathering) companies to gather data and build profiles on users and share that data with each other. Even on your regular use browser I would highly recommend uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger.

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock

https://www.eff.org/privacybadger

But with such a unique browsing situation you're basically identifiable on that basis alone. Your best bet would be to have your browser present itself as a common browser on a common platform, and block tracking and ads.

UserAgent is still top culprit (16 bits of identifying information) followed by browser plugins (12bits) then WebGl (12b), canvas (9b), language (if not english nor chinese) and then fonts at 5bits.

Total is around 20bits (due to overlaps).

YMMV.

There are add ons to change the user agent to something more generic. You can even randomize it but it breaks many more sites than I was expecting.

If by randomizing you mean random strings (and not from a list), then I think this is relevant:

https://xkcd.com/1105/

Randomly selected from a pool of known UA.

I think randomizing the UA might actually be worse, since it would allow services to fingerprint you across calls more precisely.

The point is to not ever be different from others. Act like the rest of the crowd. By changing your UA every now and then, you stand out, and become easier to identify.

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