# Getting identified/fingerprinted by my Web Browser

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-identified-fingerprinted-by-my-web-browser/942195>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [May 15, 2021, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-identified-fingerprinted-by-my-web-browser/942195 "2021-05-15T23:04:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2021, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-identified-fingerprinted-by-my-web-browser/942195/1 "2021-05-15T23:04:44Z")

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Browser fingerprinting is a method of identifying internet users without using cookies. It doesn’t necessarily uniquely identify you, but it can sometimes.

Here’s a traditional browser fingerprinting site, using only the most generic information  
[AmIUnique](https://amiunique.org/fp)

What surprised me about that one is that they’ve picked up my time zone … turns out that on a world scale, there are relatively few English speaking web users in my time zone.

And here’s a new one:  
[External Protocol Flooding Vulnerability Demo (schemeflood.com)](https://schemeflood.com/)  
That detects just 32 common installed web-apps to give a 32-bit identifier (for desktop computers).  
What surprised me about the new technique is that it works on me – I don’t use web apps, I don’t have that stuff installed … but – well --. that’s just as unusual as anything else. I share the generated identifier with only a small number of people. And this same identifier is true for all of the web browsers I have installed, so I can’t de-identify myself by switching browsers.

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**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\
**Post date:** [May 16, 2021, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-identified-fingerprinted-by-my-web-browser/942195/2 "2021-05-16T18:23:27Z")

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I tried the second (schemeflood) site. I have but 3 apps installed. 2 of which I could delete with nil impact to my life and one that I could delete with small impact. But in any case I’m in a pretty small minority too. Deleting those apps would put me into a smaller minority. So that’s nowhere to hide.

What’s a bit surprising to me is that a webpage running in the sandbox in the browser has access to an API that will report that much global state info about your machine.

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**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2021, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-identified-fingerprinted-by-my-web-browser/942195/3 "2021-05-21T06:56:21Z")

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It seems ridiculous that having Skype and Steam installed but no other apps is over 99% unique. Similarly with my useragent. And there’s no way having the generic “audiooutput” option is “unique”: it’s just what Chrome displays if the only output device is a sound card. Even if it were unique the soundcard on my motherboard, that motherboard is not rare.

That said, I do think there is enough info there that I am uniquely fingerprinted. I just question if there is selection bias at work on some of these, due to people having to deliberately go check these sites.

That said, I wouldn’t mind an extension or something that made all of this data look less unique.