On Google’s Policy Change Towards Fingerprinting

What is with everybody suggesting this or that browser? They&#x27;re <i>all</i> going to be fingerprintable. Using a less common browser just makes that easier... not that it will ever be hard.<p>You <i>might</i> get <i>some</i> relief from some tracking, including via fingerprinting, by using comprehensive ad and tracking blockers. Or you might not, since CDNs are still probably going to track you.

My guess is that the way aggressive captchas and similar tools work these days is fundamentally incompatible with the original wording in Google&#x27;s policy.<p>Doesn&#x27;t make it any less sad, though. The web is very hostile to the end user these days.

I guess it&#x27;d make a difference if anybody&#x27;d been following the policy or Google&#x27;d been doing anything effective to enforce it. I find this, um, improbable.

Use Firefox. Consumers need to wean away from spam companies.

He may or may not want the attention, but <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ladybird.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ladybird.org&#x2F;</a> is coming along surprisingly well.<p>In the meantime Safari&#x2F;Firefox as appropriate.<p>It&#x27;s a shame really, because as a piece of software engineering Chrome is incredible.

This seems like nothing. Had Google ever enforced or even inspected its ad partners for use of fingerprinting?<p>My assumption is that every site that knows how to do fingerprinting is doing fingerprinting and probably deanonymizing against a shared signature database.

The simplest, readily available solution ---use Brave or LibreWolf.<p>These can&#x27;t prevent all fingerprinting but they can make it less reliable and more difficult and costly for a fingerprint to be relayed back to the mother ship.<p>Personalized advertising is one of the dumbest ideas of the 21st century. Studies show it is less effective than context sensitive ads and it costs more. Participants in ad auctions are essentially flying blind with little reliable, verifiable insight into the process.