Cookies Are Getting Irrelevant

I think the EU fundamentally wants to help its citizens. (Well, mostly, hello Chat Control). But by the time they push through a law, it often gets outdated. This has happened with the GDPR, which is fundamentally about tracking, but as implemented now is just a consent banner for cookies. Cookies are getting irrelevant, and have been replaced with a much more potent way to track you online.

Browser Fingerprinting

The way advertisers (or "advertisers") track you is less by cookies, and more by browser fingerprinting. Your browser shares an eye opening amount of information about you and your computer, your operating system, your graphic card, your processor, RAM, audio setup and a host of other information. What business your browser has to know, let alone share these? Nothing, but when the most used browser comes from the largest ad network operator (Google), then you can't be surprised.

You can be easily identified across the internet by your browser's fingerprint. You can test your browser at the EFF's excellent page. If you use Chrome or its derivatives, you have a clear, unique ID that everyone on the internet can read (yes incognito mode too). There is a very informative post by Royfish here.

Cover Your Tracks

If you want to protect yourself, there are a few options.

One is to use the Brave Browser. They use a unique approach and randomize the information that they report to websites, creating a new fingerprint every time. If you want to keep using, this is your most complete solution.

Another chromium-based browser is Freedom. They are new, and they have a lot to prove, but I really like what I see so far.

One step up in terms of maturity is the Mullvad Browser from Mullvad, one of the best VPN services out there. Their approach is different from Brave. Instead of randomizing the fingerprint, they aim to make every fingerprint exactly the same, so there is no way to tell the different users apart. This is also a valid approach. For the record, I am using the mullvad browser most frequently.

And finally, probably the most private option is using the excellent Tor Browser, especially from a properly configured Whonix vm running on Qubes OS. It's difficult go get more private than that, save for switching off your computer and bury it under 2 metric ton of concrete.

I suggest you get started and take the first step to take back your privacy and sovereignty. Let me know if you have any questions.