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Comment by code_duck | Hacker News Reader

As demoed on EFF’s Panopticlick site, anyone can. My browser tests as unique and it’s stock Safari on an iPhone.

Does it test as unique on subsequent visits?

With subsequent visits I get “one in 339162.0 browsers have the same fingerprint as yours” and so forth, with the number decreasing each time.

Clearing cookies makes no difference - the hash of WebGL and Canvas fingerprints stay the same.

:( Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 1,357,338 tested so far.

1 in 1,357,338 could easily be 10,000+ devices considering how fast these fingerprints change and how many users are out there.

Geographic location is a much larger issue.

I know this is probably going to sound like magic to some, but you know, one can control, if they so choose to, what one's browser (if one uses a FOSS browser) sends over the network by modifying the code and recompiling it for oneself…

i bet disabling these features make you stick out even more ;D

Who said anything about disabling… some actors spoof information all the time to appear as if they are somewhere/someone else or even a someone (bots) in the first place.

On the topic of disabling, if one disabled javascript by default, one would get the immediate effect of not seeing most of the advertising on the web (outside of submarine articles).

I bet people telling others that they "need" this shit to use the web probably has significant overlap with those who say they "need" Facebook (or any other random app) or else there would be no other way to find events or things to do. Like without facebook groups, one would die! lol

Indeed, obfuscation and sending noise is one obvious countermeasure and that space needs more exploring. Google banned Adnauseam on Chrome just for tinkering with the idea.

while theoretically possible there are enough people monitoring Google's JavaScript to make sure that they will never use fingerprinting on you. Or do they?

Can someone please revive Random Agent Spoofer?

It's better to switch off JavaScript. Try panopticlick with and without it.

i just tried but sadly it did not finish without allowing js on their site and for both of the thirdparty tests. It might would have finished if i would not have enabled this test though.

However, even if it would show better results then my user agent and accept header is apprently pretty unique anyhow. But why bother.. My ip addresses do not change that often.

yes, noscript is a must, however not enough against fingerprinting

I assumed that all large sites use code like this to filter out fraudulent and abusive accounts.

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