- Mozilla Firefox makes it harder for websites to track ‘fingerprints’
- Digital information, such as your hardware specifications, is collected by websites
- This information can then track user activity even in private browsing
When you use a web browser, it is typical for websites to ask for your permission to use tracking cookies to collect data about your browsing habits, usually with an option to opt out.
But ‘fingerprints’ are much harder to block than cookies and websites can track your activity using your device’s hardware specifications, time zone and other information provided to improve website performance and functionality.
If these details are collected in a profile, they can track your browsing habits even in private browsing mode – but Mozilla Firefox is now introducing fingerprint defense, which it says can reduce unique identifiable users by around 70%.
Burning of fingerprints
The new protections have been introduced as part of Firefox’s Enhanced Tracking Protection service in Firefox 145.
The protection is currently only available in the browsers Private Browsing and Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) Strict modes, but testing in these environments will soon see the protection extended to regular browsing in the future.
Many websites run invasive scripts that collect information on your browser and device that can be used for tracking, and the scripts will often even run if you reject cookies.
These scripts will collect metrics such as browser version, operating system, screen resolution and color settings, system language, fonts, time zone, GPU rendering behavior, CPU cores, touchscreen capabilities, and your device’s memory.
Enhanced tracking protection already offers a number of anti-fingerprint measures. “Since 2021, Firefox has gradually advanced fingerprint protection covering the most widely used fingerprinting techniques,” Mozilla stated. “These include things like how your graphics card draws images, what fonts your computer has, and even small differences in how it does math.”
To inhibit other fingerprinting techniques, Mozilla has introduced new mechanisms such as adding random noise to background images when read back by the website, forcing the use of default OS fonts (except for language fonts), and obfuscating touch support, screen resolution, and number of processor cores.
These new protections can reduce the number of unique fingerprint users to just 20%, down from over 60% of users who can be fingerprinted without any protection. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that any browser will be able to lower this number to 0%, as many websites rely on fingerprint information for important website features and functionality.
Via Bleeping Computer
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