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What is the point of all the information given out by your browser? (literature.cafe)

submitted 5 months ago by NannerBanner@literature.cafe to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.ca

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So the other day someone linked to a website that highlighted how much information is just gifted to any place you visit on the web.

I'm aware of some of it being intrinsic to the manner of connection. A website knowing your IP (even if that is the IP of the vpn or tor exit node you're using) is basically essential to the function of the internet. Why everything else though? What fucking idiot/asshole decided to even have an api for your gpu? Why the fuck is my browser reporting on the battery status? Light/dark mode? Visibility (whether or not the tab is 'active', the fuck?!? My OS?!!???!?!!!?!?!?

As a side question, why is the capability built in by a browser, but the user is never given a choice about whether or not any of this is shared?

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[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 1 point 5 months ago

Don't shoot the messenger, that's just how these things are.

And it actually is possible to put all the light and dark mode stuff into one place and switch on the fly without any additional downloads but then people would complain about having to download stuff they don't need on their end. And if the site showed different images depending on light and dark they would again be able to figure it out.

Most of these APIs were added when more and more applications were built on the web. You can even access USB-devices from the web.

I'm not saying these things are good. Just that there definitely were reasons beyond telemetry for creating them.

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