this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2025
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Browser Fingerprinting And Why VPNs Won’t Make You Anonymous (hackaday.com)
submitted 2 days ago by tonytins@pawb.social to c/technology@lemmy.world
102 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Amidst the glossy marketing for VPN services, it can be tempting to believe that the moment you flick on the VPN connection you can browse the internet with full privacy. Unfortunately this is quite far from the truth, as interacting with internet services like websites leaves a significant fingerprint. In a study by [RTINGS.com] this browser fingerprinting was investigated in detail, showing just how easy it is to uniquely identify a visitor across the 83 laptops used in the study.

As summarized in the related video (also embedded below), the start of the study involved the Am I Unique? website which provides you with an overview of your browser fingerprint. With over 4.5 million fingerprints in their database as of writing, even using Edge on Windows 10 marks you as unique, which is telling.

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[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 7 points 18 hours ago (3 children)

Every time I use that site it says I am unique. So is that good? Surely if I was trackable, it would match me against the previous times I'd been there.

Or maybe the site is just spouting a load of clickbaity nonsense?

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 points 13 hours ago

If you have the cookie from them, they don't count both visits I'm pretty sure.

Non-unique would be if someone else has the exact same fingerprint.

[–] PumaStoleMyBluff@lemmy.world 1 points 15 hours ago

Yes, your browser is probably generating brand new canvas and other fingerprints every visit, which is a good thing.