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?

  • Blaster M@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    5 hours ago

    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.

    • refalo@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      5 hours ago

      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.

      • Blaster M@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        4 hours ago

        However, allowing ads means allowing tracking. You got corelation with the ads being served from ad brokers, who can now see what sites you been on and have a record of where you’ve been.

        • refalo@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          4 hours ago

          Yes but I think you still need a unique fingerprint in order to tie that data to a single person… and there are much less people who use ad-blockers than those who don’t, so to me it’s an extra bit of identifying information; obviously this puts the privacy-conscious user in a difficult position.

    • Emberleaf@lemmy.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      5 hours ago

      never sign in to anything to further avoid getting tracked.

      You’re going to have to tell me how that’s possible on an everyday-use basis. How do you do your banking? How did you access Lemmy?

      • Blaster M@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        5 hours ago

        Don’t use your Tor session to sign in. Also banks will probably not let you sign in via Tor.

      • refalo@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        4 hours ago

        I don’t think it was meant exactly that literally. If you use online banking then of course you have to allow whatever they require for it to work. But for non-necessary services that have an account feature… any time you use those of course will have more of your information out there to sell and track.