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bela53
bela53
  • 183
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Motivation

I want to develop a custom, local Firefox extension and investigate, if its installation has any impact on the browser fingerprint.

Background

Some time (years?) ago, there were articles advising against installing too many browser extensions, as they would make the browser client more identifiable and trackable by leveraging more unique fingerprints (if I remember correctly).

Today I gained more experience with JavaScript and its APIs in general, though still lacking knowledge about Firefox web extensions API to approve or falsify the mentioned articles' statement. After a bit of research, I cannot find any JavaScript API that would allow websites to read a list of my installed extensions or similar. amiunique.org also does not provide this information. Hence I would like to comprehend possible reasons for this advise (can't remember the source, sorry).

I guess, Mozilla in the meanwhile also had hardened its extensions API (was it v60?), which might make statements not comparable to status quo.

Questions

  1. As of today, is there any JavaScript API that allows reading the list of used/installed extensions, so websites could use this information to create a more unique fingerprint of my browser client?

  2. Does using a custom, locally developed (or more in general any) extension have an impact on the browser fingerprint?

  3. Have browser APIs been more "generous" in terms of querying installed extensions, so that this advice has made sense in the past? If not, I probably have mixed things up a bit :-)

Motivation

I want to develop a custom, local Firefox extension and investigate, if its installation has any impact on the browser fingerprint.

Background

Some time (years?) ago, there were articles advising against installing too many browser extensions, as they would make the browser client more identifiable and trackable by leveraging more unique fingerprints (if I remember correctly).

Today I gained more experience with JavaScript and its APIs in general, though still lacking knowledge about Firefox web extensions API to approve or falsify the mentioned articles' statement. After a bit of research, I cannot find any JavaScript API that would allow websites to read a list of my installed extensions or similar. amiunique.org also does not provide this information. Hence I would like to comprehend possible reasons for this advise (can't remember the source, sorry).

I guess, Mozilla in the meanwhile also had hardened its extensions API (was it v60?), which might make statements not comparable to status quo.

Questions

  1. As of today, is there any JavaScript API that allows reading the list of used/installed extensions, so websites could use this information to create a more unique fingerprint of my browser client?

  2. Does using a custom, locally developed (or more in general any) extension have an impact on the browser fingerprint?

  3. Have browser APIs been more "generous" in terms of querying installed extensions, so that this advice has made sense in the past? If not, I probably have mixed things up a bit :-)

Motivation

I want to develop a custom, local Firefox extension and investigate, if its installation has any impact on the browser fingerprint.

Background

Some time (years?) ago, there were articles advising against installing too many browser extensions, as they would make the browser client more identifiable and trackable by leveraging more unique fingerprints (if I remember correctly).

Today I gained more experience with JavaScript and its APIs in general, though still lacking knowledge about Firefox web extensions API to approve or falsify the mentioned articles' statement. After a bit of research, I cannot find any JavaScript API that would allow websites to read a list of my installed extensions or similar. amiunique.org also does not provide this information. Hence I would like to comprehend possible reasons for this advise (can't remember the source, sorry).

I guess, Mozilla in the meanwhile also had hardened its extensions API (was it v60?), which might make statements not comparable to status quo.

Questions

  1. As of today, is there any JavaScript API that allows reading the list of used/installed extensions, so websites could use this information to create a more unique fingerprint of my browser client?

  2. Does using a custom, locally developed (or more in general any) extension have an impact on the browser fingerprint?

  3. Have browser APIs been more "generous" in terms of querying installed extensions, so that this advice has made sense in the past?

Source Link
bela53
bela53
  • 183
  • 4

What impact does an installed extension have on the browser fingerprint (uniqueness)?

Motivation

I want to develop a custom, local Firefox extension and investigate, if its installation has any impact on the browser fingerprint.

Background

Some time (years?) ago, there were articles advising against installing too many browser extensions, as they would make the browser client more identifiable and trackable by leveraging more unique fingerprints (if I remember correctly).

Today I gained more experience with JavaScript and its APIs in general, though still lacking knowledge about Firefox web extensions API to approve or falsify the mentioned articles' statement. After a bit of research, I cannot find any JavaScript API that would allow websites to read a list of my installed extensions or similar. amiunique.org also does not provide this information. Hence I would like to comprehend possible reasons for this advise (can't remember the source, sorry).

I guess, Mozilla in the meanwhile also had hardened its extensions API (was it v60?), which might make statements not comparable to status quo.

Questions

  1. As of today, is there any JavaScript API that allows reading the list of used/installed extensions, so websites could use this information to create a more unique fingerprint of my browser client?

  2. Does using a custom, locally developed (or more in general any) extension have an impact on the browser fingerprint?

  3. Have browser APIs been more "generous" in terms of querying installed extensions, so that this advice has made sense in the past? If not, I probably have mixed things up a bit :-)