How to prevent information spilling to websites, games, etc?

[Teeber]

information like what software i use, OS, hardware and other informations.

[Omega]

Websites can't do that.

The only info your browser passes to websites is user agent, but that is passed for compatibility purposes.

This would be an example of a user agent under Firefox;
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:101.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/101.0

And Safari/Webkit:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/15.0 Safari/605.1.15

If you were to for example run Firefox or Safari and send a Chrome user agent to pretend you are running Google Chrome some sites might no longer work properly. This is because they will start enable functionality which only Chrome supports.

Worry more about trackers following you between websites to track which websites you visit. Run a privacy respecting browser such as Firefox, install a privacy respecting ad and tracker blocker such as Ublock Origin.


For programs you are running on your system there is nothing you can do other than not install spyware on your computer. There are plenty of privacy respecting alternatives for pretty much everything.

Instead of Google Chrome use Firefox, unstead of Microsoft Windows use GNU/Linux or a BSD variant. Instead of Adobe use GIMP, Krita and Inkscape..

Here is a good resource to find alternatives to programs;
https://alternativeto.net/

[HypersleepyNaputunia]

i thought they recorded screen resolution and bunch other stuff like that for hardware identifying people

[Omega]

Originally posted by HypersleepyNaputunia:

i thought they recorded screen resolution and bunch other stuff like that for hardware identifying people

They can get the viewport resolution, that is the size of the area in which the site is displayed. Do not run the browser in full screen and it will nullify this method of tracking.

This specific data being collected can only be prevented by disabling JavaScript which will rended many websites non-functional.

[HypersleepyNaputunia]

so by forcing people to have javascript on, all the internet companies force people to lose their right to privacy?

[Omega]

Originally posted by HypersleepyNaputunia:

so by forcing people to have javascript on, all the internet companies force people to lose their right to privacy?

JavaScript is used to add functionality to a website, JavaScript itself is not evil.

Howerver it can be abused for tracking purposes. It could for example collect your screen size, which keys you press and how you move your mouse and send all this to a tracker somewhere.

[A&A]

They are using super cokies and fingerprints to get the infromation. Even if you have add-ons you are still exposed

Mental Outlaw usually have good videos about privacy and stuff and in this video he is showing and explaining (most of them) advanced settings for Firefox.

YouTube™ Video: Maximize Your Browsers Privacy and Security with ZERO ADDONS!!! 

Views: 139,493

In this video I show you how to maximize your Browsers Privacy and Security with no browser extensions by going into about:config and changing the settings for better privacy and security.

[Omega]

Originally posted by A&A:

They are using super cokies and fingerprints to get the infromation. Even if you have add-ons you are still exposed

Mental Outlaw usually have good videos about privacy and stuff and in this video he is showing and explaining (most of them) advanced settings for Firefox.

YouTube™ Video: Maximize Your Browsers Privacy and Security with ZERO ADDONS!!! 

Views: 139,493

In this video I show you how to maximize your Browsers Privacy and Security with no browser extensions by going into about:config and changing the settings for better privacy and security.

"Super cookies" are just cookies which are used by a tracker on all websites where this tracker is active. Cookies are traditionally linked to a domain which made them.

An ad/tracker blocker can prevent any kind of connection to the domains used by these trackers thus preventing them from tracking you. The cookie will never even be created.

Firefox's "Total Cookie Protection" feature protects against this aswel. It keeps cookies all seperated between sites even if they originate from the same domain. You will still be tracked but not between websites, the tracker does not know if you are the same person when going to another website.


Example; You go to example.com, and example.com uses Google Analytics, so Google Analytics creates a cookie containing a unique number so it can identify who you are.

On Google Chrome this same cookie can be read by Google Analytics when you are on website.com which also uses Google Analytics.

On Firefox with Total Cookie Protection it can't do this. example.com and website.com both have seperate cookie jars, they can't share cookies. example.com and website.com both have their own Google Analytics cookie, thus removing the "super" from super cookie.

[A&A]

"Firefox blocks cookies from known trackers, scripts from known fingerprinting companies, and supercookies"
Well, at least is the strongest. But true they are isolating the cookies from the different websites.

And still, it is failing with Bing ads, Google (third party ad pixel), Twiter pixel and Yandex ads cookies and even if you have "strict" protection, it is failing against fingerprints.

So they know
-version of browser
-Time zone
-Screen size
-System fonts
-Which GPU l have
-Which language l am using
-touch support
-CPU threads
ect.
Probably the IP so why not, so the VPN is useless

[HypersleepyNaputunia]

how many pieces of info to make a unique positive id of 300 million potential users?

[staryluj]

There's only one way to protect personal privacy - don't use TCP/IP with its applications and any other (analog or digital - wired or wireless) telecommunication devices, including those that use radio or light signals to transmit morse code :))