Even tho there were quite a few different opinions about the best way of protecting yourself from fingerprinting it would be much appreaciated if @Sunkar could give us any other updates worth mentioning.
I am not using the extension anymore. There are quite a few of people who are still using it on Wilders. I personally don't want to waste much more time on trying to protect myself from fingerprinting. I use the built in mechanisms of Firefox and nothing more.
It could just be me, but JShelter doesn't seem to prevent canvas fingerprinting for me anymore at browserleaks.com. It used to, but doesn't now. Can anyone confirm?
Update - Interestingly enough, JShelter works in a new profile. With my current one it seems JShelter is not working at all. But I can't understand why, and there's no indication.
JShelter is still in development. We recently secured additional funds to continue development. There is a live talk going right now at libreplanet.org/2023 if you want to hear about the project.
JShelter seems to be effective, but I've some doubt about the importance if I view next statement on the site WhoTracks.me | Trackers (hosted by Ghostery).
JShelter seems to be effective, but I've some doubt about the importance if I view next statement on the site WhoTracks.me | Trackers (hosted by Ghostery).
I will say that JShelter works pretty seamlessly using Recommended level, which they advise as the preferred mode based on their research. I'm really testing the user experience more than feeling the need for it.
Current version is 0.12.1 released last week. No change log, but development continues regularly.
#110 A switch to Manifest v3
Opened 12 days ago by polcak. Modified 12 days ago
Summary
We are in the process of migration to MV3. This issue will contain URLs ro resources that we will need during the migration. Please edit this post as wiki.
Early next year, Firefox will release Mozilla’s Manifest V3 (MV3). Therefore, it’s an ideal time to consider migrating your Manifest V2 extensions. One of our ...
Starting November 21, 2022 add-on developers are welcome to upload their Firefox Manifest version 3 (MV3) compatible extensions to addons.mozilla.org (AMO) and have them signed ...
blog.mozilla.org
Current JShelter status
Giorgio works on NSCL support and observes W3C development. Libor investigates MV3 in general.
Just a quick note, my WARN with low CPU impact settings still warn you when you visit: Fingerprint Pro - Formerly FingerprintJS - Device fingerprinting API
When revisiting Fingerprint Pro in the same session (meaning you did not close your browser. The good news is that JShelter still warns
"
When you close the browser and re-visit Fingerprint PRO website, the great news is that JShelter still protects your privacy.
I was surprised that the lower CPU impact WARN settings still protect
Explanation on why "warn with low impact settings (and reduced protection)" still protects on this latest (99,5% succes rate) fingerprintig demo.
I have lowered the protection settings of JShelter which cost relatively more CPU time to protect you. Because privacy is a lost case ("We are the borg resistance is futile you will be assimilated by fingerprinting" ) JShelter (even with the most strict settings) won't protect you against the 'BOOH I am tracking you" proof of concept FUD websites .
But there is a downside on using all possible fingerprinting techniques available. Your website will become less responsive which will cost your Google page relevance rating (heavy websites will be placed lower in search results). A fingerprinting feature which lowers your Google rating is simply commercially not viable. This is why only 0.2 percent of the websites use these fingerprinting techniques (according to "who tracks me" ). Still some commercial websites use fingerprint tracking (like ikea.com uses and a Dutch news website RTL nieuws).
The cost of fingerprinting is probably the reason why my lowered JShelter protection settings protect against Fingerprint PRO across browser sessions (with a claimed 99,5% successrate). This new services probably is so efficient, it won't lower your page ranking. Fingerprint PRO is efficient because it does recognise returning visits during the same browsing session even with JShelter installed (with my settings). On the other hand this "warn, but don't protect" during same browsing session, actually is a compatibility advantage, because it won't break websites using this fingerprinting feature when you have JShelter installed.
Thanks @Jan Willy for pointing me to FingerPrint Pro website and @oldschool for attending me on JShelter: I am going to add it to my protection. I had played with JShelter, but had de-installed JShelter, because (as Jan Willy posted) not many websites used it. This new service with its high accuracy rate and Google pushing towards a cookie free world will probably increase the prevalence of these type of new and advanced fingerprinting services (credits @plat posting this).
EDIT: found a better way to use JShelter (because not many websites use fingerprinting): perform an ad-hoc check when you visit a website, using Chromium browsers option to run an extension on demand (run it for a specific website for this session only by clicking on it).
* Reimplement AudioBuffer.prototype.copyFromChannel to prevent multiple farbling of the same data
* Optimize performance of Canvas and Audio wrappers
* NSCL updated: JShelter benefits from the mechanism to prevent inconsistencies / breakages when the extension gets updated and therefore the old wrappers are invalidated by Firefox which nukes their sandbox and new ones are installed on extension's automatic restart
