I really like brave. If it is technically possible though, it would be nice to have stronger anti-fingerprinting features. My OS, windowing system (X11) and HTTP accept headers alone make me almost unique and I don’t know how or whether it is possible to obfuscate these.
I tested my setup (including javascript disabled) with panoptoclick and the result was that 1 in 36,000 browsers have the same fingerprint as mine. This is unique enough that accessing a local website or enabling javascript on a site would probably give my identity away. Also, I think the test result was optimistic because the average person who runs a panoptoclick test is probably more likely to have JS disabled and a few other things in common with me than the average user of the internet, meaning that among the total internet population I am probably more unique that 1 in 36,000.
I’m not sure how many websites fingerprint to this degree in practice, but I don’t really feel like I have strong privacy if there are probably less than 100 people in my country with the same fingerprint as mine.
There are many different methods of fingerprinting and the method that Panoptclick uses is just one. It is just one of several fingerprinting/privacy test sites. Some folks believe that having lower entropy is inherently better and others believe the more “noise” the browser makes ensures you look much like the rest of the herd. Using Brave as you’ve indicated makes you an advanced user so your profile is likely lower than the mass of users. If you want privacy to the point of complete anonymity you need to use Tor - or stay off the internet completely - and compartmentalize your behavior to make profiling more difficult. Additionally, much of your data, e.g. health info, government and credit data, etc. is already on the web via 3rd parties and you have little control of it anyway.
I too would like to see Brave improve its privacy features and trust they will do so over time, in keeping with their goal of keeping the browser and the internet usable.
Thank you for taking the time to make such an interesting reply. It feels like I am in a world of unknown unknowns as far as privacy goes. I hope my data does not outlive democracy.
I wished Brave would add Noscript, Ublock Origin, Umatrix , All open source by the way. If they were to add these in to brave it would fix many issues like Finger Printing and others. IF Some built a browser with these in , they would be a head of the curve in a big way.
uBlock Origin is basically useless on Brave, which has its own anti-ads system that does the same things. FWIW, I have used uBlock Origin with Firefox for a very long time.
As for I don’t care about cookies, it is being implemented.
Actually, many websites are fingerprinting like this. Reddit, for example, and all major social media companies are using advanced fingerprinting technology.
I have created another thread here that explains my own investigation:
I also tried using Tor Browser, but same thing. They know who I am.