FingerprintJS Blog
fingerprintjs.com · Company blog · on HN since 2020
FingerprintJS, a fraud detection company, writes about browser and device fingerprinting techniques and related tracking vulnerabilities.
What HN saysHN links it mostly in job postings and as an example of a fingerprinting tool, which commenters note is widely available.
24HN people shared it
15linked it in comments
17stories submitted
1.2Kstory points
4 years agolast shared
2020people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Homepage7 people · first shared 2021
- 2How the Web Audio API is used for browser fingerprinting4 people · 8 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 3Browser Fingerprinting Without JavaScript3 people · 166 points · first shared 2021 · 121 comments on HN
- 4Local Device Fingerprinting on iOS3 people · 13 points · first shared 2022 · 1 comments on HN
- 5Demo3 people · first shared 2020
- 6Vulnerability allows cross-browser tracking in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Tor2 people · 467 points · first shared 2021 · 200 comments on HN
- 7Android wallpaper images can threaten privacy2 people · 205 points · first shared 2021 · 76 comments on HN
- 8iOS 15 iCloud Private Relay Vulnerability Identified2 people · 26 points · first shared 2021 · 3 comments on HN
- 9Demo: Ad blockers as a novel source for fingerprinting entropy2 people · 17 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 10Exploiting IndexedDB API information leaks in Safari 151 people · 250 points · first shared 2022 · 92 comments on HN
- 11Fingerprinting in the Modern Browser1 people · 3 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 12What Is TLS Fingerprinting?1 people · 2 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 13Browser fingerprinting techniques1 people · first shared 2021
What HN people wrote when they linked it
ivanfjps · 2022-04-01
FingerprintJS | JavaScript Engineering Team Lead, DevOps Engineer | Full Time | Remote |https://fingerprintjs.com/
FingerprintJS empowers developers to stop online fraud at the source. We work on turning radical new ideas in the fraud detection space into reality. Our products are developer-focused and our clients range from solo developers to publicly traded companies. Some of our customers include Target, checkout.com, coinbase, and eBay just to name a few.
100% Remote, Global (GMT-8 to GMT+3), flexible schedule, direct contract, competitive salary
We are looking for:
DevOps Engineer: https://grnh.se/70ca0e824us
JavaScript Engineering Team Lead: https://grnh.se/e675f8ed4us
easrng · 2022-01-25
I haven't check Firefox's fingerprint resistance but Bromite's is very effective against https://fingerprintjs.com/ at least.
amandamesser · 2021-12-02
FingerprintJS | Multiple Roles | 100% Remote | Full-time/Contract | https://fingerprintjs.com
Backed by Craft Ventures, FingerprintJS empowers developers to stop online fraud at the source. We are a globally dispersed, 100% remote company with a strong open-source focus. Our flagship open source project is FingerprintJS (15.3K stars on GitHub).
Perks: Work from anywhere, competitive pay, stock options, $600 annual learning budget, Macbook M1 Pro provided, 20 Days paid time off, Unlimited Sick Time.
Senior JavaScript Developer (Fullstack) -- https://grnh.se/c36b3d7f4us
Senior Golang Backend Engineer -- https://grnh.se/df9daec84us
altilunium · 2021-08-25
Powered by Supabase and Fingerprint.js
https://github.com/altilunium/sy
https://fingerprintjs.com/
Please, post responsibly.
weinzierl · 2021-02-05
> Facebook and LinkedIn (to name two of the most elaborate fingerprinters) are years ahead of anything a few researchers could come up with.
Not only them. It is available to the masses[1] and I am afraid GDPR has given this trend a boost.
[1] https://fingerprintjs.com/
SavannahJS · 2021-01-04
FingerprintJS | Fully remote (anywhere in the world) | Full-time | https://fingerprintjs.com/
We are a VC-funded open-source first startup working on browser fingerprinting for preventing online fraud. Flexible hours, transparent culture, challenging work. It's good people!
Postings:
• Full-stack TypeScript developer
• Senior Golang Engineer
https://fingerprintjs.breezy.hr/
no_time · 2022-01-13
>Windows
lol most people pay money for windows (even against their will if they want to buy a laptop for example) and still get ads and telemetry cranked to the max. What's up with that?
>Android
Another bad example. In a less shitty world where the majority share of the global mobile OS duopoly isn't owned by a glorified surveillance company, the support of a device would be covered by, and only by the sale price of the device. Which wouldn't be such a huge cost if Android better had engineered HAL and better standards so every device could update from the same repo tree.
>if you have to pay for everything then you'll leave even more of a trail on what you did.
This is my problem with Kagi[0](frequently posted here). This is more of the fault of the current global payment infrastructure than any ordinary tech company's. But if you think that the current ad infested browsing experience makes you any more private I have bad news for you. Namely fingerprintJS[1].
You might be asking what are my solution's to these problems. And my answer is that I have no idea. The only thing I know is that I'm seriously jaded with the current
{mono,duo}poly ridden state of tech.
[0]: https://kagi.com/ (currently throwing internal server error lol)
[1]: https://fingerprintjs.com/
varenc · 2022-04-09
Oh I don't actually disable WASM. Those are just different scripts that can apply to pages when a filter matches. I disable sendBeacon everywhere with `*##+js(disable-sendBeacon.js)` but the others I don't use or only use on a specific site. I believe I added the WASM removal just to test how a particular site's fallback would work when it wasn't present. That said, disabling WASM probably reduces your browser fingerprinting bits. I bet fingerprintjs[0] uses it.
UBO already has a built-in set of powerful scripts[1], but I just wrote my own for fun. I think I could have done this by just using the built-in ones.
edit: This filter does the same thing just using the built in `set` script, but won't log to console:
*##+js(set, navigator.sendBeacon, trueFunc)
[0] - https://fingerprintjs.com/demo/
[1] - https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Resources-Library
shp0ngle · 2022-02-07
The actual blogpost is here
https://fingerprintjs.com/blog/disabling-javascript-wont-stop-fingerpr…
basically they use CSS trickery together with server-side stuff.
It's pretty clever.
@font-face
{
font-family: 'Helvetica';
src: local('Helvetica'),
url('/signal/(token)/fontHelvetica')
format('truetype');
}
to detect font (which detects OS), and
@media (featureX: value1)
{
.css_probe_42
{
background: url('/signal/(token)/featureX/value1');
}
}
to detect browser features (which detects browser)
tomudding · 2021-12-19
I think this sounds more like some sort of fingerprinting attempt. It good to see that random access to these kind of resources fails due to new(er) browser controls. However, this does not mean that the fingerprinting actually failed.
There is probably some way to determine if the request was denied automatically by the browser or manually by the user (e.g., time to get "response"), which is definitely something which can be used for fingerprinting.
Which reminds me of fingerprinting by tiny differences in the audio API provided by browsers [0]. Super interesting, but also a bit depressing. Also works for things like canvases and WebGL.
EFF allows you to check how fingerprintable your browser is [1]. Do note that the results may not be very accurate.
[0]: https://fingerprintjs.com/blog/audio-fingerprinting/
[1]: https://coveryourtracks.eff.org
dc3k · 2021-12-19
> https://fingerprintjs.com/blog/audio-fingerprinting/
> It is particularly useful to identify malicious visitors attempting to circumvent tracking
Ah yes, the visitor trying to not be tracked is the malicious one. Barf.
devtailz · 2021-10-26
Not that this is a reputable source, but https://fingerprintjs.com/blog/browser-fingerprinting-techniques/ suggests that fingerprinting a media device requires the site to have camera permissions. Which is also what I would expect. But perhaps I’m just too hopeful
samizdis · 2021-06-22
Comment thread [1] from post "Vulnerability allows cross-browser tracking in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Tor" [2] from about five weeks ago.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27145911
[2] https://fingerprintjs.com/blog/external-protocol-flooding/
aaron695 · 2020-09-17
5 minute exercise to try -
Download Tor https://www.torproject.org/download/
Go to your site, and see if you think it works - https://fingerprintjs.com/demo
(Also notice how Tor changes the screen size everytime you open it)
stealthbot · 2020-09-17
https://fingerprintjs.com/demo shows that Tor can still be fingerprinted and uniquely identified across IP addresses. Your Javascript (navigator) user-agent and timezone are some of the dead giveaways as they leak the true values.