1. What is browser fingerprint?

Browser fingerprint can track the web browser through the configuration and setting information visible to the website. It has a clear individual identification like fingerprint on our hands.

The information of browser fingerprint identification includes UA, time zone, geographical location or language, etc. the information quality developed by the browser determines the accuracy of browser fingerprint.

For the website, getting the browser fingerprint has no practical value. What is really valuable is the user information corresponding to the browser fingerprint. As a webmaster, collecting users' browser fingerprints and recording users' operations is a valuable behavior, especially for the user case without identity.

For example, in a video website, user A who is not registered with the website likes to browse the 2-D World video and record this through the browser fingerprint, so he can directly push the 2-D World video to the browser next time. Because most of the current Internet devices are private, this push method is easy to get the favor of most users, so as to make them become registered users of the website.

2. Fingerprint acquisition

Information entropy is the average amount of information contained in each message received. The higher the information entropy, the more information can be transmitted. The lower the information entropy, the less information can be transmitted.

Browser fingerprint is synthesized by the characteristic information of many browsers, and the information entropy of characteristic values is also different. Therefore, fingerprints are also divided into basic fingerprints and advanced fingerprints.

1) Basic fingerprint.

The basic fingerprint is the part that is easy to be found and modified, such as the header of HTTP

In addition to the fingerprints obtained from HTTP, you can also obtain the characteristic information of the browser through other ways, such as:

User Agent in the browser

HTTP ACCEPT header sent by browser

Extensions/plugins installed in the browser, such as QuickTime, flash, Java or acrobat, and versions of these plugins.

Fonts installed on the computer.

Does the browser execute JavaScript scripts

various cookies and "super cookies"

Is the browser set to "do not track"

Operating System(e.g. Win32, Linux x86)

System language (e.g. CN, en US)

Does the browser support Touch Screen

After obtaining these values, some operations can be carried out to obtain the specific information entropy of the browser fingerprint and the UUID of the browser.

This information is similar to human weight, height and skin color. It has a great repetition probability and can only be used as auxiliary identification. Therefore, we need more accurate fingerprints to judge the uniqueness.

2) Advanced fingerprint

Ordinary fingerprints are not enough to distinguish unique individuals. At this time, advanced fingerprints are needed to further narrow the scope and even generate a unique cross browser identity.

The information used to produce fingerprints can be divided into weight, and the information with large information entropy will have a large weight.

In the paper《Cross-Browser Fingerprinting via OS and Hardware Level Features》, it make a detailed research on the information entropy and stability of each index.

It can be seen from this paper that the weight of time zone, screen resolution and color depth, information entropy of canvas and webgl on cross browser fingerprint is relatively large. Let's take a look at what information these advanced fingerprints contain.

3).Canvas fingerprint

Canvas is a dynamic drawing tag in HTML5. It can also be used to generate pictures or process pictures. Even if canvas is used to draw the same elements, due to different systems, different font rendering engines, different anti aliasing, sub-pixel rendering and other algorithms, canvas turns the same text into pictures, and the results are also different.

The implementation code is roughly as follows: render some text on the canvas and then convert it into todataurl. Even if privacy mode is turned on, you can get the same value.

The process is very simple. Render text. Todataurl is to export the contents of the whole canvas and get the value.

4) Webgl fingerprint

Webgl (Web Graphics Library) is a JavaScript API that can render high-performance interactive 3D and 2D graphics in any compatible web browser without using plug-ins. Webgl does this by introducing an API that is very consistent with OpenGL es 2.0, which can be used in HTML5 elements. This consistency allows the API to take advantage of the hardware graphics provided by the user device to accelerate. Websites can use webgl to identify device fingerprints. Generally, there are two ways to produce fingerprints:

Webgl report - the complete webgl browser report form is available and detectable. In some cases, it is converted to a hash value for faster analysis.

Webgl images - hidden 3D images rendered and converted to hash values. Since the final result depends on the hardware device performing the calculation, this method generates unique values for different combinations of devices and their drivers. This method generates unique values for different device combinations and drivers.

You can check the website through browserleaks test to see what information the website can obtain through this API.

The principle of generating webgl fingerprint is to draw a gradient object with shaders and convert the image into Base64 string. Then enumerate all the extensions and functions of webgl and add them to the base64 string to produce a huge string, which may be very unique on each device.

For example, the webgl fingerprint production method of the fingerprint 2JS Library:

3.How to prevent "user fingerprint" from being generated

The article also mentioned at the beginning that many people love and hate browser technology. Because a large number of websites use various technologies to "generate" user fingerprints, so as to bring more accurate recommendations to website users and meet users' browsing habits. While users enjoy the convenience brought by technology, they will inevitably feel anxious and uneasy about "privacy disclosure". So how can we prevent "user fingerprint" from being generated?

Following We need to introduce the Fingerprint Browser, which can prevent "real user fingerprint" from being generated.

4. What is fingerprint browser?

Fingerprint browser is the latest generation of anti association technology through browser fingerprint modification or camouflage: it perfectly replaces the traditional account anti association methods such as VPS and virtual machine, and solves the use scenario of one computer logging in and operating multiple accounts at the same time.

The most basic function of fingerprint browser is to prevent the website from tracking our real browser fingerprint. Now it is more used in the field of cross-border e-commerce multi account anti Association.

What is the principle of fingerprint browser?

Fingerprint browser prevents any website from reading your real fingerprint information by modifying the browser fingerprint, so as to achieve the purpose of anti tracking.

Fingerprint browser allows you to set up multiple independent corporate and social marketing accounts that are never connected to each other. Because you can use IP proxy and your cookies and other files are completely isolated, your browser fingerprint is also protected by us and cannot be detected by any external means.

5. Lalicat fingerprint browser?

Lalicat Fingerprint Browser can help you manage hundreds of separated browser profiles, and support member management and cooperation on sharing multiple profiles to each others for setting up business workflow efficiently. In other cases, Lalicat antidetect browser can also be operate local API to operate multiple accounts automately. You can automate the app through Selenium or Browser Automation Studio. It’s also easy to set up business processes.

Use cases: SEO, E-commerce, SMM, Affiliate Marketing, Ads Agency, Online Survey, Traffic Arbitrage, Ticketing Online and others.

Now Lalicat can offer 3 Days Free Trial with unlimited profiles for all new users.