How anti-fingerprinting extensions tend to make fingerprinting easier
palant.info
Browser extensions claiming to protect against fingerprinting will typically result in more data available for fingerprinting.

While browser extensions are often suggested as a method to improve your privacy, they could make things way worse. I linked an article about the anti-fingerprint extensions however, every extension that you installed on your browser make you stand out more.

This happens even with adblocker extensions. First of all, enumeration badness it’s not a good approach against tracking, that’s why Tor browser doesn’t use any adblocker.

Site-specific or filter-based addons such as AdBlock Plus, Request Policy, Ghostery, Priv3, and Sharemenot are to be avoided. We believe that these addons do not add any real privacy to a proper implementation of the above privacy requirements, and that development efforts should be focused on general solutions that prevent tracking by all third parties, rather than a list of specific URLs or hosts.

Trying to resort to filter methods based on machine learning does not solve the problem either: they don’t provide a general solution to the tracking problem as they are working probabilistically. Even with a precision rate at 99% and a false positive rate at 0.1% trackers would be missed and sites would be wrongly blocked

Source.

Moreover, every site visited can detect every change you made including blocked domains and so, instead of achieve privacy you’ll stand out more. If you’re going to use and adblocker it’d be a good idea using only the standard filters.

  • dandelion
    6•3 years ago

    This happens even with adblocker extensions. First of all, enumeration badness it’s not a good approach against tracking, that’s why Tor browser doesn’t use any adblocker.

    Long time ago I’ve read that Tor browser does not use uBlock Origin because there were CPU spike issues at startup reported with Tor browser.

    Here is a thread : https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/17569

    It seems ublock Origin has quite some performance issues on higher security levels

    • @Lunacy@lemmy.mlOP
      1•3 years ago

      Thank for sharing. It’s true; if Tor bundled uBlockOrigin then every Tor user would have the same fingerprint. However, now the problem is about the filter lists. For having the same fingerprint all users need to use the same set of filter lists because the domains blocked need to be the same, but every single user has a different user case. Moreover, the enumeration badness and philosophy problem still remains.

      In my opinion Tor has chosen the right approach since most of the websites need to use use ads & trackers in order to cover the fees.

      • @pinknoise@lemmy.ml
        4•3 years ago

        since most of the websites need to use use ads & trackers in order to cover the fees.

        Most ad companys do not pay for tor views/clicks some not even for conversions. And you definitely want to block the ones that track conversions.

        • @Lunacy@lemmy.mlOP
          1•3 years ago

          Tails uses uBlock Origin in their TBB btw.

          Yes, but the use of Ublock could help identity you as a Tails User which it’s not a good approach, especially for people who have an higher threat model. Another problem about ublock on Tor (I’m not sure about this, maybe tails blocked this feature and shipped ublock only with a set of filter lists, very glad to be corrected here) is the possibility to chose different lists thus creating fragmentation between users.

          removes advertisements on Tor it’s pretty much useless, is more about convenience than actually privacy. Tor has built real privacy approaches in order to mitigate fingerprint and cross tracking, like FPI. Using filter lists in order to achive privacy it’s a poor approach for the reasons I linked in the OP.

          Tails includes the uBlock Origin extension which removes advertisements. If an attacker can determine that you are not downloading the advertisements that are included in a webpage, that could help identify you as a Tails user.

          Source

          In my opinion any website that build on ads and tracking to “cover their costs” (or rather making a profit) is harming the planet. Exploitation should not be rewarded.

          I understand your point, if you’re choosing to block ads & tracking it’s fine in my option, but on Tor it’s different, simply because has already mitigate these problem using good countermeasures. Instead, using and adblocker could worse your privacy.