Brower Data - Why are they not doing more?
2026-05-10 22:45 UTC
Replies (7)
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@reluctant_squidd@lemmy.ca 2026-05-10 22:52
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!!
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@adespoton@lemmy.ca 2026-05-11 00:06
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.
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@MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 2026-05-11 10:11
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. “User has 4:3 ratio” done.
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@crow@leminal.space 2026-05-11 12:11
I have no answer to your question, but if you’re looking for alternatives, hardened Firefox forks such as LibreWolf, Fennec, IronWolf 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 Ironwolf can spoof the latter with a toggle and reports a spoofed screen size
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@voxel@feddit.uk 2026-05-11 13:10
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.
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@utopiah@lemmy.ml 2026-05-11 09:01
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.
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@monovergent@lemmy.ml 2026-05-10 23:30
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.