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<blockquote data-quote="oldschool" data-source="post: 863465" data-attributes="member: 71262">But the most intrusive phoning-home features were found in the new version of Microsoft Edge and the official Yandex Browser.According to Prof. Leith, both used unique identifiers that were linked to the device&#039;s hardware, rather than the browser installation.Tracking users by hardware allows Microsoft and Yandex to follow users across installations and potentially link browser installs with other apps and online identities.The professor said that Edge collected the hardware <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universally_unique_identifier" target="_blank">UUID</a> of the user&#039;s computer, an identifier that cannot be easily changed or deleted without altering a computer&#039;s hardware.Similarly, Prof. Leith also found that Yandex transmitted a hash of the hardware serial number and MAC address to its backend servers.&quot;As far as we can tell this behaviour [in Edge and Yandex] cannot be disabled by users,&quot; the professor said.Furthermore, just like the three browsers before, Edge and Yandex also collected and sent back information on a users&#039; visited web pages via the search autocomplete functionality.However, the professor also found that the two also sent back information about visited web pages that did not appear to be related to the search autocomplete feature, suggesting the browsers had other ways to track users&#039; browsing habits.More details on the research and the methodology can be found in a research paper titled &quot;Web Browser Privacy: What Do Browsers Say When They Phone Home&quot; [<a href="https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf" target="_blank">PDF here</a>].</blockquote>

[QUOTE="oldschool, post: 863465, member: 71262"] But the most intrusive phoning-home features were found in the new version of Microsoft Edge and the official Yandex Browser. According to Prof. Leith, both used unique identifiers that were linked to the device's hardware, rather than the browser installation. Tracking users by hardware allows Microsoft and Yandex to follow users across installations and potentially link browser installs with other apps and online identities. The professor said that Edge collected the hardware [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universally_unique_identifier']UUID[/URL] of the user's computer, an identifier that cannot be easily changed or deleted without altering a computer's hardware. Similarly, Prof. Leith also found that Yandex transmitted a hash of the hardware serial number and MAC address to its backend servers. "As far as we can tell this behaviour [in Edge and Yandex] cannot be disabled by users," the professor said. Furthermore, just like the three browsers before, Edge and Yandex also collected and sent back information on a users' visited web pages via the search autocomplete functionality. However, the professor also found that the two also sent back information about visited web pages that did not appear to be related to the search autocomplete feature, suggesting the browsers had other ways to track users' browsing habits. More details on the research and the methodology can be found in a research paper titled "[I]Web Browser Privacy: What Do Browsers Say When They Phone Home[/I]" [[URL='https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf']PDF here[/URL]]. [/QUOTE]

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