Read the Browser, Read the User
We use web browsers all the time, most of us probably interact with one multiple times every single day, but what does your web browser tell about you? Step right up and click the button below to find out what your web browser can tell about you, and more importantly what power this could give the sites you use every day.
In the time that it took from you clicking the button above to this text appearing on your screen, a script ran and determined the following information about your browser, computer, and possibly you...
You are using on a device running , with a screen that is pixels by pixels in size. Additionally, you have this window , which probably means that . You also probably the bookmarks bar visible. Finally, it would appear that you have a graphics card in your computer.
The script that ran when you clicked on the first button analyzed information that your browser provides freely for various features that may identify information about you. These features include: the kinds of things your web browser supports doing, data about your screen size, and some data about how your browser creates graphics. By correlating these features with known values for each browser and OS, this site can figure out what browser and OS you are using and various information about it.
For the purpose of being an unessay, I intentionally limited the number of features I wanted to analyze. However, websites that make use browser fingerprinting will generally use way more features in a way that allows them to uniquely identfiy your browser even if you clear your cookies or turn on "Incognito Mode."
To see how far trackers and advertisers can go, check out amiunique.org and the EFF's Cover Your Tracks website. These two sites use way more metrics and features and can give you a detailed explanation of whether your web browser is or is not unqiue.