this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2025
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Browser Fingerprinting And Why VPNs Won’t Make You Anonymous (hackaday.com)
submitted 1 day ago by tonytins@pawb.social to c/technology@lemmy.world
77 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Amidst the glossy marketing for VPN services, it can be tempting to believe that the moment you flick on the VPN connection you can browse the internet with full privacy. Unfortunately this is quite far from the truth, as interacting with internet services like websites leaves a significant fingerprint. In a study by [RTINGS.com] this browser fingerprinting was investigated in detail, showing just how easy it is to uniquely identify a visitor across the 83 laptops used in the study.

As summarized in the related video (also embedded below), the start of the study involved the Am I Unique? website which provides you with an overview of your browser fingerprint. With over 4.5 million fingerprints in their database as of writing, even using Edge on Windows 10 marks you as unique, which is telling.

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[–] FE80@lemmy.world 14 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

Librewolf + uBlock Origin + Privacy Badger + containerise

For the comedy extra point, a user agent switcher can actively lie about your browser & OS.

[–] blurb@sh.itjust.works 9 points 11 hours ago

uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger shouldn't be paired together. Containers do nothing to prevent your fingerprint from being collected. LibreWolf itself is easily fingerprintable. And the user agent isn't the only telltale sign of your browser and OS, changing it will just make you more unique.

Just use Mullvad Browser with the default settings.

[–] W3dd1e@lemmy.zip 17 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

Using a browser like Librewolf is, itself a unique identifier bc not enough people are using it.

EFF has a tool that lets you check your “uniqueness” and bc I used a lesser known browser, it was easier to track me.

Not that I mean you shouldn’t use it. I just wanted to clarify that it doesn’t make you safe from ads. :(

[–] FE80@lemmy.world 20 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ is the EFF tool.

My results say that I have strong protections against tracking, and that my browser is unique. It's as good as I can get.

The agent switcher also tells the world my Librewolf on Linux is Chrome on Windows.

[–] W3dd1e@lemmy.zip 6 points 15 hours ago

Thanks for linking it! I should have done that. And if LibreWolf is showing as Chrome on Windows, then you’re good!

[–] W3dd1e@lemmy.zip 2 points 15 hours ago

Thanks for linking it! I should have done that. And if LibreWolf is showing as Chrome on Windows, then you’re good!

[–] hodgepodgin@lemmy.zip 1 points 12 hours ago

This breaks most websites you’ll visit. Just to keep in mind to others considering locking their browser down.