Can someone help me understand this? If hundreds of thousands of people use a popular browser extension, how does that make it easier for you to be singled out among them? I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this, can anyone help?
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Browser fingerprinting takes measurement of things the browser exposes. If a browser exposes installed extensions, this can be used to corelate information. If awebsite checks if the browser loaded something or not, that also can be used to corelate.
Example, you (ip address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx) visited this website (trackingsite.xyz), with a screen resolution of 1920x1080, using a (Mozilla/firefox) browser. The three trigger pixels did not load, meaning you’re using an adblocker, and the remote font loaded from localhost, not google. Your canvas, microphone, and camera are all blocked. Your browser also responded to an api ping for (useful extension). Interesting. This same configuration was also on (othertrackingsite.xyz) and (definitelyalegalsite.xyz), both of which a browser with the same info navigated to for at least 5 minutes, so we know it wasn’t a mistype. This same browser configuration was seen regularly browsing these sites on [days of the week] at [time of day], indicating a regular habit.
We know who you are and where you have gone.
Okay, that makes sense (and thanks for the great explanation!). But, don’t website ads also track you? So if you’re not using an adblocker, can’t you be compromised that way? And wouldn’t a good VPN help with fingerprinting?
Yes, turning off adblocker is worse. You should be using Tor browser with default configuration to browse privately, and never sign in to anything to further avoid getting tracked.
In the context of fingerprinting I disagree. The vast majority of the world population do NOT use an ad-blocker (supposedly maybe 15% do at most)… so having an adblocker can be used to narrow you down even more IMO. Many extensions can have this issue afaik, especially if it modifies the DOM.
Actually as of 2024, 31.5% of internet users worldwide use an adblocker. Source: https://backlinko.com/ad-blockers-users
When you use a “good vpn”, it would just show that a user with your same fingerprint visited also from yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy
It’s about the exact combination of extensions you have installed, along with all of the other info that a nosy website can obtain from you (installed fonts, User Agent string including exact version numbers, etc). It doesn’t come down to any one particular piece of info, but every bit adds to the overall picture. Here is a good overview and their main page runs an active test on your browser.
