As we all know by now, Mullvad’s new browser (MB from now on) is awesome and works by creating a “crowd” with basically all the same fingerprint (FP), making it harder to track an individual MB user by giving everyone the same really solid defaults.
My question is, what, if anything, could we possibly change in settings that would NOT affect the FP, defeating the crowd effect that is intended. For example, would changing default search engine from DDG to Mullvad Leta, or Brave Search, affect the FP? Would changing the theme from system default to Firefox Alpenglow affect the FP? Or how about increasing the security level from Standard to Safer, would that come at the expense of privacy? You get the picture.
I am assuming we might have to wait for Mullvad to make some sort of statement or explanation to know more details, but maybe someone here can give a little insight on this topic.
No it would not, since the anti fingerprinting mechanisms(giving default values to queries, etc) work in all sites, including your chosen search engine. However the search engine may identify you/know things about you if you enter PI(Personally Identifiable Information).
No, since the sites can’t query what specific theme name you are your using. They can only query whether the user uses light or dark mode. To mitigate this, “whatever privacy browser” returns a default value (light mode).
No, increasing the security level disables dangerous javascript, switching to Safer mode wouldn’t come at a privacy cost.
So the settings that we ideally should leave alone are more to do with the about:config? Or, which of the standard settings options would actually affect fingerprinting? Thanks!
The short answer is: Any setting that changes how a website is displayed. Fonts, default zoom level, website appearance, most things in privacy & security, etc.
