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Comment by maukdaddy | Hacker News Reader

Apparently quite unique =(

  Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 234,579 tested so far.

  Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys

  at least 17.84 bits of identifying information.

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It's not really that big of a deal. Their site still thinks my browser is totally unique, despite having visited them the last time this was posted.

The reason? I installed a couple of new fonts.

Interesting...one solution from the perspective of the tracker might be a system that assigns different weights to different types of information, with things like fonts and browser plugins given less ranking than things like OS, browser type, and time zone, which probably change much less frequently. You might not be able to get 100% unique tracking, but if you could guess that there was a 99% chance that it was the same person, doing things like behavioral advertising would probably still be worth it.

The interesting application of things like this and the visited link color hack is to use them in Europe, where apparently you have to get users to approve a cookie every time? This might be a good way to skirt the issue for a lot of sites that don't need a guarantee that it's the same person.

So you suggest installing a different set of fonts each time you visit a new site?

No, I'm suggesting that the majority of computer use will invalidate this as a viable method of identifying users. Connecting from home versus a cafe or a friend's place; browser upgrades; plugin changes/upgrades; using a different browser; installing or removing fonts ... all of those will break this.

The prospect of having this in place instead of cookies would be a huge victory for privacy.

Hey! You're exactly as unique as me!

Chromium nightly?

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