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Comment by ruszki | Hacker News Reader

I don’t think that it’s possible to not have a strong profile on you. I’m using Librewolf with a ton of anti fingerprinting tools, separate sessions for everything, blocking any ads, social media SDKs, Google things, like Analytics, don’t even use Google anywhere for search etc on a Debian. Yet, Google knew immediately when I started to play Minecraft. The only connection was embedded YouTube videos on Minecraft wiki, and my ip. On paper.

Since then I gave up. I tried everything which was reasonable, even some unreasonable. Yet, I couldn’t stop them not knowing. Maybe if I had blocked JavaScript completely, maybe, but I’m not sure at all anymore.

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I take a number of steps to obscure my identity from advertising/surveillance networks and data brokers, and I know ultimately they'll still have profiles on me that are probably extensive.

Don't give up! Even if failure to prevent some data collection is inevitable, we can all help reduce the aggregate value of shadow profiles assembled by advertisers:

Block all ads. The bits that cross the threshold onto your networks and devices are yours to display or not. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a petty tyrant.

Help friends and family to block all ads. React to ads in their homes and on their devices the way you would to nonconsensual, graphic, violent pornography.

Keep blocking ads and tracking even though you know shadow profiles built about you continue to exist. It's only partially about confounding surveillance. It's also, and equally, about changing culture.

A VPN helps. You can essentially mix your traffic with thousands of other people.

I think a VPN likely hurts more than it helps. Maybe they can't tell your IP address anymore, but they have a ton of ways of tracking through it anyways. It probably hurts more by marking you as someone willing to shell out too much money for snake-oil security products.

Lol. I use a vpn every day to access geofenced content abroad. It also provides extra layer of anonymity by giving you a different address which is the same for everyone going through that server. Which was what the question was about. Other types of tracking can be mitigated on your end.

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