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How is Lumo recognizing that I maxed out it's free questions using Vanadium? (lemmy.ca)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/graphene_os@lemmy.sdf.org
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I'm not particularly technically knowledgeable so forgive me if this answer is obvious.

If I'm deleting my cookies/browser data, my OS Mac address is random when using vanadium, I'm using a vpn, and, it's not like I have a vanadium profile I'm logged into, how does the Lumo page "know" that I've maxed out the amount of times I've used it without having a Lumo profile? Shouldn't I be unrecognizable to the page?

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[–] 11 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Other people on the vpn are also using lumo

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    • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Mac address is not visible by websites.
    Is your VPN IP always the same?

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    • [–] 0 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Browser fingerprinting most likely

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 month ago (2 children)

    I thought Vanadium obscures fingerprinting? Also, shouldn't deleting data/cookies erase browser identifiers? Also, Lumo is supposed to be a privacy based service, it's weird that they'd track browser fingerprint identifiers...

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    Obscuring fingerprinting doesn’t mean eliminating. The ad industry has made browser fingerprinting a very powerful tool and frankly just using a browser like vanadium (with a market share so low it’s probably not measurable) is a huge identifier plus whatever other bits they can grab (like time zone) are probably enough to fingerprint with reasonable accuracy

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    Browser fingerprinting is identifying a user by inherent information about their environment that is available to the server even without cookies. Stuff like location, OS, browser settings (font size, version, etc) and anything else that they can use as a data point. Combining all of these variables can sometimes be unique enough to identify individual users, within certain contexts.

    I don't know what Vanadium does to protect against this, the usual privacy recommendation is to not adjust any browser settings for personalisation (e.g. dark mode).

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