• Voxel@feddit.uk
    2 hours

    They’re actually being discussed, but more by experts with other experts, in groups of researchers, etc.

    The general privacy advocate often times lacks the deep technical understanding.

    • Squizzy@lemmy.world
      1 hour

      I lack all sorts of understanding. I want it all to work perfect and be private, I am the illiterate consumer.

  • crow@leminal.space
    1 hour

    I have no answer to your question, but if you’re looking for alternatives, hardened Firefox forks such as LibreWolf, Fennec, IronFox etc all have varying degrees of anti-fingerprinting features. I know for sure that Fennec withholds battery and gyro data, but gives timezone data, while IronFox can spoof the latter with a toggle and reports a spoofed screen size

    edited

    • Squizzy@lemmy.world
      2 hours

      I must try these, the only one I found was fennec, it did give accurate gyro information.

      • crow@leminal.space
        1 hour

        Weird, my Fennec must’ve had additional configurations I forgot about since it didn’t give out that info. I uninstalled it for IronFox so I can’t check it! I mentioned LibreWolf but that’s on desktop, so no gyro info there

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
    5 hours

    I mean, why do they need to report screen resolution to JS? If you don’t use JS for things you shouldn’t, you don’t need that data point.

    Or at least make it rough data only. Or ratio data. “Window has 4:3 ratio” done.

    • FineCoatMummy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      44 minutes

      I think there are a few valid reasons. I made a page for my friends for some videos of their adopted puppy they wanted to share. Absolutely ZERO trackers, ZERO fingerprinters. Just oldschool pre-enshittification web page. But CSS wasn’t enough to dynamically switch the vdieo res when windows were resized, without losing current playback spot. It needed a little JS. Not much! Tiny and you could just look to see it did nothign bad.

      Prob is, abuses by Big Evil Tech now overwhelm non-shitty uses. And we’re left with a completely enshittified web. Full of fingerprinters and trackers and web bugs. Inescapable surveilence b/c they abuse every possible signal to track ppl.

      This is why we cannot have nice things.

  • utopiah@lemmy.ml
    6 hours

    What makes you think they aren’t?

    I participated to W3C workshops and privacy data was definitely part of most if not all discussions.

    That being said each browser vendor have their own strategy and opinion based on their business model and culture.

    • Squizzy@lemmy.world
      5 hours

      Because firefox give gyro data and there is no reason to. Same with screen density.

  • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
    15 hours

    There have been good writeups on why Apple doesn’t provide gyro data — it can be used to physically track people. This is mostly an issue in apps that embed Safari, such as a store loyalty app that can track your movement while you’re in their store — or in a competitor’s store. Since Firefox isn’t embedded in apps, it’s not an issue there.

    • JustEnoughDucks@slrpnk.net
      8 hours

      Can you provide one or elaborate on it?

      Embedded developers have tried all manner or wizardry to simply track speed, not even position based just on an accelerometer/gyro, but the sample rate error drift is so large that putting a GPS module in there is 100x more accurate for deriving speed.

      I would be interested to see how a browser, which almost certainly doesn’t get the full serialized data, is able to track just based on that which the wearables industry have been trying for decades with bad results.

    • filcuk@lemmy.zip
      10 hours

      Please elaborate on why that’s not an issue with Firefox?
      A site getting my physical position is creepy to say the least, I don’t want to have entire behaviour profiles built for me based on such data, not to mention that any unnecessary exposed data helps fingerprint us across the internet.
      Am I missing something?

      • Squizzy@lemmy.world
        5 hours

        Its crazy, the accurately deduced I was sitting browsing because of the gyro. Combine with location/time and all their data they likely know all of us individually at this point?

  • reluctant_squidd@lemmy.caEnglish
    16 hours

    Advertisers need to be able to fingerprint you based on a combined measurement of the metrics you speak of. They aren’t interested in you per se, but you as a statistic, they are very interested in.

    Advertisers are willing to pay more for accurate data.

    Removing enough of these metrics to muddle the fingerprinting process would be bad business for everyone, so they all ride the line of privacy vs. profitability hoping we don’t notice.

    I mean, that’s what I just came up with in my head in the moment anyways.

    Now, off to forget I ever posted this!!

  • monovergent@lemmy.ml
    15 hours

    I don’t have a good answer, but I wonder the same and about the technical reasons why, if some websites require such data, the browser can’t just lie and touch up rendering in post to fit whatever unique window size I have. AFAIK, uBlock already does some of its own CSS touch-up so there aren’t awkward gaps where ads once were.

    Of the browsers I’ve tried out, the Cromite project goes furthest to mitigate and obfuscate the data it hands out, but in their words, it’s still not comprehensive.

    • jafra@slrpnk.net
      8 hours

      Cromite sounds nice. Well, aside the fact users stand out from the rest because of using a exotic browser. But nonetheless that seems like i should give it a try.