I was browsing Gemini (the protocol, not the AI) when I came across this gemlog:
I usually disable JavaScript, but this post advises against it. I am also worried by the fact that most users of Fingerprint.com, Am I Unique?, and Cover Your Tracks will likely be using private browsers, so the real-world results would be quite different.
What do you think?
I think the author has failed to acknowledge the efforts of resisting browser fingerprinting from Tails, the Tor Browser/Project and/or Whonix.
In some sense they are right, and especially so considering they are coming from the perspective of being a Gemini user…
I think some degree of fingerprinting will always be inherent to the World Wide Web by design. Or even if Mullvad/Tor somehow ever completely 100% succeed in defeating all fingerprinting, there will always be feature trade-offs that go along with it.
I’d also agree with this statement:
it generates a significant data point of its own: the fact that JavaScript is disabled.
The main exception is only when you are using Tor/Mullvad in Safest mode, because there are a reasonable number of other people who also have JS disabled and look like you in that case. But so few people will disable JS in browsers like Firefox/Brave or even privacy-focused ones like Librewolf that I would agree disabling JS otherwise is a big fingerprinting issue.
Going back to Gemini, I think that (or something like it) might actually be the only real solution to fingerprinting on the web: Having some completely separate protocol that only handles basic things like text/images and never runs any code client-side by design, that way you can’t really stand out.
It would be great to have something like Gemini coexist with the rest of the web to eliminate fingerprinting at least on some websites. It’s hard to see that getting mainstream appeal though, especially when big content providers are heavily disincentivized to use Gemini/Gopher/etc.
I find it interesting the author did not bring up browsing Gemini as a potential solution 
Well, there’s not really a lot of content on Gemini/Gopher, in my experience. Plenty of personal capsules, sure, and even some games and social media — but it isn’t nearly as engaging as some of the large web.