Baa, baa, baa

[sraun]

Gakked most recently from bruce_schneier fed from Tracking your Browser Without Cookies:

How unique is your browser? Can you be tracked simply by its characteristics? The EFF is trying to find out. Their site Panopticlick will measure the characteristics of your browser setup and tell you how unique it is.

When I tested the four browsers I have installed, they all showed 'unique among 230,nnn browsers tested'. Please go give them more data.

Comments

[archangelbeth]

Good grief, I'm using bog-standard Safari, and it thinks I'm unique? O_o

[xinef.livejournal.com]

Ah, but do you have a lot of fonts installed, or browser plugins?

My FF analysis also said it was unique, and I'm pretty sure that is why when I look at the analysis details.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

It says you've got a unique browser even if you hit it again with the same browser.

Also, given that apparently nobody has a non-unique browser, how would you go about getting a non-unique browser? Since it appears from the comments on Bruce's blog that every browser is different, it would seem that there is no standard of blandness to aspire to. By trying to become the same, you become the most different person in the room.

I'm sure that's a perfect metaphor for something.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm unique too. The list of plugins and versions is immense, and then they add a list of system fonts too.

A second visit listing you as still unique could be because they set a cookie themselves, did anybody check? Or maybe they remember the IP plus signature for a while.

[fmsv.livejournal.com]

I wonder if they just take the plugin list and font list as sent, or do some sorting on them before checking for uniqueness? That might have some effect as well.