Home Blog InformationalBrowsers raise privacy issues

Browsers raise privacy issues

privacy

Most browsers have a unique fingerprint

The browser of most consumers is leaking so much information that Web sites don't need an IP address or cookie to uniquely identify visitors. This is demonstrated in research conducted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The digital civil rights movement gathered the data configuration and version of OS, browser and browser Plugins of volunteers who visited the site panopticlick.eff.org. The data was compared with the configurations of one million other visitors.

It shows that 84% of configuration combinations make the user unique and identifiable, so that every browser is a digital "fingerprint" left behind. Browsers using Adobe Flash or Java Plugins make it possible to identify users and track their momement over the web 94% of the time.

The state of privacy on the net

For those users to whom privacy is important, there is really no way to protect their identity. Facebook is pointed to as the biggest culprit when it comes to shamelessly exploiting the private information of their users, but browsers should be closely examined for privacy issues.