Websites/apps deservedly get a lot of hate for tracking, but browsers deserve far more in my opinion. Half these data points have no legitimate reason to ever be exposed to sites, especially without asking for user consent first
Why tf can my browser read my battery percentage or if it's charging?
Edit: Chrome can see this info, Firefox apparently removed the API allowing such access
This needs to built into phones / browsers
Nothing this page showed me seems overly troubling.
Ip address is not from the browser. Location derived from the address is not leaked by my device. Time zone is also derived from this, and cannot be helped unless a vpn is used.
I want my browser to tell the website what language I prefer.
Cookie support is easy to determine; just try to save a cookie.
The list of fonts is debatable, but i think the server knowing what fonts I have could be beneficial. But using it for fingerprinting seems dubious. How many iOS users have never downloaded any extra fonts and all look the same?
the interesting one for me was that it had an IP, but tracked it a good couple hundred miles away. it also got my timezone wrong, and was also wrong for the supposed place it thought I was.
edit: I just checked the ip it got for me, and that was also incorrect; I'm not using a vpn.
My location was a couple of towns away. Presumably the location of my ISPs node.
An incorrect IP? You probably have something intercepting your traffic in some way in that case?
Yeah like half of these things are required for the internet to function. The remainder seem like things that probably had good intentions but can be abused.
My browser was snitching on my battery, charging, and even device orientation (to the degree).
But using it for fingerprinting seems dubious. How many iOS users have never downloaded any extra fonts and all look the same?
The following is from https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/
To determine your system fonts, tracking sites commonly display some text in an HTML tag. Trackers then rapidly change the style for that span, rendering it in hundreds or thousands of known fonts. For each of these fonts, the site determines whether the width of the span has changed from the default width when rendered in that particular font. If it has, the tracker knows that font is installed. How is this used in your fingerprint?
The list of fonts you have installed on your machine is generally consistent and linked to a particular operating system. If you install just one font which is unusual for your particular browser, this can be a highly identifying metric.
I find it interesting that this site knows where I am, but every time I use a generic search for things near me, my browser thinks I am in South Detroit. Actually,I just tried this with wifi off and the site now thinks that I am in Detroit .so it seems to be a T-Mobile thing where websites think I am in Detroit.
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