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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[–] undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

I imagine it’s somewhere between what both of you are saying.

I imagine “randomized” means a random common “fingerprint” (with parameters like user agent, language, etc) rather than just a unique set of randomized parameters (say, time zone in US but language set to Farsi which would be unique to an extent).

[–] artyom@piefed.social -1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

I mean it doesn't matter if it's unique or not. What matters is that your fingerprint changes as you browse.

[–] undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

Sorry but that’s totally wrong.

The entire point is that if it’s unique it can be considered a fingerprint — in fact the entire reason it’s called “fingerprint” is that in theory it’s unique like a real fingerprint.

If it’s common then it’s unreliable as a fingerprint because it’s no longer unique. Therefore whether it’s unique or not is the entire point and relevant to the topic.

[–] artyom@piefed.social 0 points 9 hours ago

Sorry, but that's totally wrong.

Imagine if you changed your literal fingerprint. No one would be able to trace it back to you.

Likewise, if your fingerprint changes as you browse, those activities can no longer be linked together, because you no longer have a "fingerprint" at all.