Brave is introducing a feature whereby it will begin randomizing certain browser information that is used to fingerprint and track users.
Starting in Brave Nightly now, Brave is deploying a new type of fingerprinting defense that we expect will be uniquely effective. Instead of removing or modifying browser differences, or adding troublesome permission prompts, the Brave browser will start adding subtle randomization to some fingerprinting endpoints. This privacy-through-randomization approach has been studied by privacy-focused computer scientists, most recently in the PriVaricator (Nikiforakis et al, WWW 2015) and FPRandom (Laperdrix et al, ESSoS 2017) projects. This is the first time those approaches are implemented in a mainstream browser.
This approach is fundamentally different from existing fingerprinting defense approaches; current approaches attempt to make all browsers look identical to websites (an impossible goal). Brave’s new approach aims to make every browser look completely unique, both between websites and between browsing sessions. By making your browser constantly appear different when browsing, websites are unable to link your browsing behavior, and are thus unable to track you on the Web.
