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submitted 1 week ago by wuphysics87@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

I use ProtonMail, and I was thinking, "Damn, it's spectacular not being tracked... but hold on a minute. Perhaps less than gmail, but still at all. And what about browser fingerprinting, and cookies, and even fonts!" I ended up in that feedback loop we all end up in. Perhaps ignorance is bliss? What is something you (might) wish you were ignorant of?

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[-] Sadbutdru@sopuli.xyz 13 points 1 week ago

Not an answer to your question, but...

are you saying I need to be worried about fonts spying on me now? Like typeface?

[-] LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyz 12 points 1 week ago

They used to use your list of installed fonts as one of the data types to figure out who you are.

I'm not sure if that's still a thing, how many people download new fonts now, but it was an important part of fingerprinting at one point.

[-] sbv@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 week ago

are you saying I need to be worried

you're probably fine

[-] BussyCat@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

One of the ways of fingerprinting that they use is to determine what fonts you have loaded onto your browser and it’s surprisingly effective. I think before I changed mine to all default my fonts were unique to like 1:10000 people which once you factor in other fingerprinting techniques can make you pretty obvious

[-] plyth@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

What others said. Additionally Google offers free fonts to embed in websites that allow Google to know when you visit any site that uses one.

this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2025
58 points (100.0% liked)

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