How do websites identify you device?

[Kenna]

Hi there I have a question. what kind of information do websites know about your device.

Obviously they know your IP, but what else.

for the case of android, can they know your android device ID and your model number.

How about MAC address?

Can they know system specs?, I imagine that they will know your screen resolution and aspect ratio?

 

Does changing or spoofing your user agent help at all or not?

 

 

[Radium_Angel]

21 minutes ago, Kenna said:

Hi there I have a question. what kind of information do websites know about your device.

Obviously they know your IP, but what else.

for the case of android, can they know your android device ID and your model number.

How about MAC address?

Can they know system specs?, I imagine that they will know your screen resolution and aspect ratio?

 

Does changing or spoofing your user agent help at all or not?

 

 

On a "naked" browser, that is one without ad-blockers, they can get as much info as they program their website to pull from you. IP, MAC, location, OS type, you name it.

Hence the reason why you just can't browse the web without a solid ad-blocking scheme in place.

 

And the user agent string (IIRC) just spoofs what browser you are using, nothing else.

Running a VPN will change location/IP data of course, but the rest could still be had.

[.Apex.]

23 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

they can get as much info as they program their website to pull from you. IP, MAC, location, OS type, you name it.

Most websites decide to pull everything for the purpose of marketing and the excuse of "we wanna improve our services" give me a break.

[Yatharth Shah]

3 hours ago, Kenna said:

Hi there I have a question. what kind of information do websites know about your device.

Obviously they know your IP, but what else.

for the case of android, can they know your android device ID and your model number.

How about MAC address?

Can they know system specs?, I imagine that they will know your screen resolution and aspect ratio?

 

Does changing or spoofing your user agent help at all or not?

 

 

Websites via TCP/IP protocol can know your public ip. and since you are probably on a router that means that via open directories they know your approximate location (your city). In android they know your model number,but probably not your mac address. 

and since they know model number, system specs are just a web search away. They also know your screen resolution, aspect ratio that is why you are told not to run tor in full screen . thus it is better to use a reputed vpn like PIA or tunnelbear or protonvpn that encrypts your traffic

[Acedia]

When you request a website your request contains certain informations about your device and browser. Like this:

Mozilla/5.0 (Android 4.4; Mobile; rv:41.0) Gecko/41.0 Firefox/41.0

Showing your browser including version and the Android/OS version you are using. There are also techniques to check out if this is correct by using certain code in your page because different devices react differently to it.

Your prefered language is also transmitted.

You can also get information about the screen like resolution and color depth.

Everything else is cookie based.

[Kenna]

Ok thanks for that guys, Anyone have any recommended privacy oriented web browsers for android.