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by ranger_danger6 hours ago |
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upvoteby tempestn5 hours ago|
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I appreciate the list of potential harms. I'm curious about your last point though. Isn't it trivially easy to wipe cookies from your browser?
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upvoteby drnick14 hours ago|
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You should always configure your browser to automatically wipe all data on exit. The Arkenfox user.js user profile does this and more to mitigate fingerprinting.
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upvoteby majorchord3 hours ago|
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I am logged into way too many sites to do that unfortunately. I do use a password manager with a browser plugin to make it easier, but it's still a lot of manual work to re-login to all the sites I use on a normal basis, for both work and home, every time I restart my browser.

Would be nice if there was some other solution, like maybe encrypting the browser profile and then requiring a pin/password/biometric/something to unlock it on each start.

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upvoteby drnick12 hours ago|
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It shouldn't take more than one second to log into a website using the Firefox password manager.
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upvoteby majorchord2 hours ago|
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In my case it often can and does.

Many sites I use force email or SMS-based 2FA, sometimes in addition to "security questions" and/or have other multiple steps of authorization (like captchas) required; it's often not just a simple username/password for me.

Now multiply that by 25 different sites. Not happening.

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upvoteby drnick12 hours ago|
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One option for that is to use multiple Firefox profiles. The main general-purpose browsing profile would have a hardened configuration, while dedicated profiles are used for other websites that should remain logged in.
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upvoteby fsflover4 hours ago|
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It's not just about cookies but also about fingerprinting, which is extremely hard to prevent.
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upvoteby SoftTalker4 hours ago|
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No extensions that randomly change your fingerprint? I suppose that might trigger a lot of captchas.
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upvoteby majorchord3 hours ago|
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There are but I'm not aware of anything that can reliably fool creepjs.

https://abrahamjuliot.github.io/creepjs/

And yes it often results in endless captcha loops.

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upvoteby fsflover2 hours ago|
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Fingerprinting can be extremely sophisticated. Have a look at this test: https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/

Only Tor Browser can reliably fight with it.

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upvoteby ranger_danger1 hours ago|
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Tor Browser will not even hide the OS you're using from javascript... so if you're on Linux, you are automatically more identifiable than >97% of people.

Also, that EFF site only checks against other people who visited the same site, so the results are skewed IMO. The other comment that links to creepjs is what I consider the best available open source tool.

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upvoteby ranger_danger5 hours ago|
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It can be yes, although not everyone wants to do that because you will likely be logged out of all the websites you're using, shopping carts cleared out, etc.
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