Does the "Redirector" add-on affect your browser fingerprint in any way? (kbin.social)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by ADHDefy@kbin.social to c/privacyguides@lemmy.one

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I use it in my normal Firefox setup, but I've been playing with Mullvad browser and I've kept everything to the defaults so I have a good option when I want a little more anonymity without needing the nuclear option (Tor) for sensitive-ish-but-really-not-all-that-sensitive browsing.

I'd like to add Redirector into the mix, and my inclination is that it shouldn't affect the fingerprint because everything is handled clientside from start to finish with that add-on, and the redirect is handled before the browser even connects to the redirected site. With that said, I'm honestly not 100% sure if simply adding an extension of any kind would be enough to change the fingerprint and cause me to lose out on some of that sweet, sweet herd anonymity.

Anyone know the answer to this that can fill me in? I would appreciate it. :)

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[-] leraje 9 points 11 months ago

I speak under correction, but I believe that whilst yes adding any add-on can potentially alter your fingerprint, it's also true that a site has to test for the presence of that particular add-on you've added. I don't believe there's a way to test generally for the presence of add-ons and report back which add-ons a visitor is using.

[-] joyful_hyaena@lemmy.one 1 points 9 months ago

I would also like to know. I've been using Mullvad browser pretty much since it came out and I've always wanted to add the Libreddirect extension but never dared because of fingerprinting. I remember reading a while ago that on chromium browsers, some scripts can detect the mere presence of extensions. I have no idea if that could happen in firefow-based browsers as well.

this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023

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