Brave Version:
Version 1.73.105 Chromium: 131.0.6778.265 (Official Build) (64-bit)
Additional Information:
I just read that Google will use fingerprinting to track web browsers, starting next month. I used the site linked above to check a few browsers’ protection against this, and was told that 2 tests could uniquely identify me on Brave among about 200k browsers tested in the last 45 days:
In the Screen Size and Color Depth test, Firefox and Chromium both report “1920x1200x24,” which is unique to one browser in 135. Brave appears to report the size of the content pane, which is unique among either 200k test cases or 50k test cases, depending on whether or not I use vertical tabs.
In the WebGL Vendor & Renderer test, both Brave and Chromium give a detailed description of the hardware and its capability. Firefox simply reports “AMD~Radeon R9 200 Series, or similar,” which is only unique to one in 123 browsers tested.
I don’t know how much of an issue this is given that my IP address is visible, but it would be nice to see Brave at least as effective as other browsers in every test. The screen size test was additionally concerning because Brave appears to be giving the wrong answer, which might affect javascript programs.
This is referring to what you have your current window open to. As the website tells you, it’s “too brittle” because the value fluctuates quite a bit depending on what a person has their window set to. For example:
In terms of WebGL Vendor & Renderer, this will show exact only if you have Graphics Acceleration enabled. This isn’t going to be randomized because it played a pivotal role in compatibility. As you can imagine, you are not the first person to ask about this and it’s certainly not the first time it’s been answered.
One other key point I want to make is that unless things have recently changed, Brave’s focus is on 3rd party trackers. So that means other websites or advertisers aren’t going to be aware you came here to Brave Community.
They aren’t focused on a website being able to recognize you are visiting again.
In that sense, they don’t have to fully randomize every little thing. They just have enough randomization where you blend in with others and tracking across the internet is unreliable.
Websites throughout the internet aren’t sitting there running all of these tests like we can at these places like EFF where we looked at these tests. If they did, we would consistently see big slowdowns and certainly big pushbacks across the internet.
Anyway, may also be helpful to check out the blog post that just recently got made as well:
Brave’s goal is to randomize the output of your APIs in such a way that we preserve website functionality while still maintaining privacy. So even though the EFF tool reports that you have a very unique value, this value would be different even for you per-site. This is a very effective measure against cross-site tracking. Even for the same site, your screen size (in this case) would change between browser sessions, or if you cleared history, used a Private Window, etc.
A different approach is to report the same value for all users so that users can “hide in the crowd”. The EFF tool is aware of this distinction in anti-tracking approaches, which is why we’re able to achieve the best score possible overall. You’ll also see that for many APIs measured, the test site correctly reports Brave’s output as “randomized by first party domain”. In the case of screen resolution, we can’t report completely randomized values, which is why we add some randomization to perturb the true value.
Oh, and actually, had closed out of Brave and went back with same, so thought nothing of it. But then opening in Private and going:
So just to highlight that aspect of the screen size thing. At least goes to show compared to the earlier 1919x959x24 that it changed despite all else being the same overall.
