I’ve been using Chr-incognito + Norton 360 VPN/Ultimate thinking I was golden. Pfft! Yah, I’m from the EBCDIC/Windows 286/DOS/Novell Netware era…
In the last week, I stopped using Chrome and my library of bookmarks, set Mullvad Browser as my Win11 default. Still using N360 VPN simply because I have it- while I start navigating this ‘new-to-me’ shitstorm.
I truly tried to search your forum for insights, truly. Skimmed jonah’s Browser Fingerprinting Tracking Overview which taught me how nebulous this subject is. So if I missed/overlooked an answered question, please reply with a thread link and I’ll do my level best to sort this out.
If I understand my circumstance correctly, my fingerprint is already out there, along with what I eat for breakfast, the brand of toothpaste I use, and everything else websites deem interesting about my exceedingly mundane life.
Apart from shit canning chrome, what other steps can I take?
Is it possible to reindentify/unidentify myself?
Is the good ol’ ‘format/reinstall my OS/programs’ an antiquated countermeasure?
It’s not really a static thing, it changes with browser updates and setting changes. The main thing is websites being able to reidentify you in the short term and across different websites even after clearing cookies and cache.
The main thing to do is use a browser with anti fingerprinting features, which includes brave, Firefox, and Safari mainly. Tor browser or Mullvad browser are the best, but they’re a bit less convenient. Don’t install extensions as they can affect your fingerprint.
That won’t really do much as fingerprinting doesn’t rely on any files on your system, that’s the advantage of it for tracking. Hope that helps
Moving all your browsing activity to alternatives. Mullvad is great but I feel it is not useful as much for everyday use or to use it all the time. I would move to Brave or Firefox, whatever you like best. Of course, use uBlock Origin (and you may want to enable a few more filter lists within this for enhanced web browsing experience) and a good password manager like Bitwarden or Proton Pass.
You are fingerprinted. That doesn’t mean it means nothing to stop it going forward. So, I think this is the “wrong” question to ask if that’s how you’re thinking about it.
What you can do here is move make the right changes (which seems like you already know), read up on all the info Privacy Guides has about it. One of the keys to be is to ensure your browser settings are such that your cookies and site data is purged upon every time you close and open the browser. So, any shadow profile any platform may be trying to make on your is only short lived.
If you are able to, yes -I’d recommend this. You can use additional de-bloating tools like the CTT Toolkit to better your Windows set up once you reinstall it. But depends on how tech savvy you are, you may or may not know or like to use this tool. If you are still interested and have questions, feel free to ask.
Apart from this, just be careful and only use better, private alternatives to any app you’re using (as much as possible).
First off, congratulations. You are making all the right moves and working on becoming more informed (just like the rest of us).
Good news is that once you move to more Privacy based products and behavior, your old “data and information” that they collected starts to age. After some time has gone by, your behavioral profile is no longer valid.
So, keep up the good work and this forum has been the best source for information and guidance I have found out there.
If you are looking for a simple and highly effective solution, use Tor. The downsides are high latency and low throughput.
If the downsides of Tor as too onerous, you can use a “hardened” browser and/or a VPN. I use Firefox with the Arkfenfox user.js but there are other options. I also suggest that you use uBlock or uMatrix with a default policy of blocking all third party content. This will break a lot of websites, and you may need to allow CDNs and perhaps some other static content.
Beyond that, there is not much you can do. Protecting your privacy online is just as much about what you don’t do as it is about what you do. The precautions I suggested are useless if you post information about yourself on Facebook. All Big Tech products are incompatible with privacy.
You really can’t recommend uMatrix to anyone. Sure, it’s great, but it hasn’t been updated in years. Of course, you can use it yourself at your own risk.
No, its already out there. You can remove some of the personal details already out there but there is internal debate whether it is a net good, especially if people have sold your data to chinese data brokers who will not honor deletion requests. Right now you want to stop giving them more data points so that (for example) they continue to think that you still like cereals when you have moved on and like muesli now.