Privacy Browsers/Extensions Make You More Trackable

Overview

The video argues that many “privacy” tactics meant to stop browser fingerprinting—especially installing large numbers of specialized privacy extensions and making browsers look highly customized—can backfire. Instead of making a user less identifiable, these efforts may make them more identifiable.

The speaker’s core claim is:

Trying too hard to look unique makes you stand out. The best strategy is to blend in with the crowd.

Evidence and Testing (EFF “Cover Your Tracks”)

To support this, the creator demonstrates tests using the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) “Cover Your Tracks” website. This tool scores browsers based on how easily they can be fingerprinted by tracking companies.

The speaker runs the test on two main setups:

1) Brave (Chromium-based) + uBlock Origin

• Results show strong protection against web tracking (ads and “invisible” trackers blocked).
• A randomized fingerprint is reported.
• Browser attributes (e.g., user agent details, headers, language, time zone, fonts) are described as generic, meaning the browser supposedly would not stand out among other Chromium users with common configurations.

2) LibreWolf (Firefox-based, privacy-hardened) + built-in privacy settings

• It also reports strong tracking protection, but partial protection from fingerprinting.
• The fingerprint details are portrayed as more distinctive, including:
  • Time zone set away from the user’s expected “Chicago” time to “Atlantic”/a random region
  • An atypical screen resolution
  • Missing or altered fingerprintable details (e.g., memory)
  • Unusual WebGL behavior/errors
• The speaker concludes that LibreWolf’s hardening changes create a fingerprint profile that becomes more distinguishable, resulting in weaker “blending in” performance.
• Quantitatively, the speaker notes that the LibreWolf configuration yields a fingerprint shared by only about 1 in 23,848 visitors in the referenced dataset.

Main Conclusion / Recommendation

• Blend in > maximize uniqueness. The speaker argues that a randomized-but-otherwise-common browser profile is safer than aggressively customizing everything.
• Recommendation: use a standard browser approach (specifically mentioning Brave) with practical defenses like Brave Shields or uBlock Origin, rather than “over-the-top” privacy setups that:
  • reduce usability, and
  • may increase fingerprint uniqueness.
• The speaker emphasizes that viewers shouldn’t blindly trust the creator and should run their own tests using the EFF tool.

Presenters or Contributors

• “Random idiot with crazy hair on the internet” — the video’s speaker/creator (not otherwise identified by name)
• EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) — author of the “Cover Your Tracks” fingerprint-testing site used in the demonstration