When you open a website, your browser hands over many small details so the page can display properly: screen size, language, time zone, fonts, graphics capabilities and more. Alone each is ordinary. Together they can make your browser stand out, so a site can recognise it again without a cookie. That combination is a fingerprint. The fingerprint test shows yours; this guide explains what the result means.
What is in a fingerprint
- Browser and system: browser name and version, operating system, number of processor cores, memory class.
- Display: screen resolution, colour depth, pixel ratio, window size.
- Language and region: preferred languages and time zone.
- Rendering: how your graphics hardware draws text and shapes (canvas and WebGL). See canvas fingerprinting.
- Audio and fonts: audio processing quirks and which fonts are installed.
- Settings: whether cookies, Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control are on.
What it can and cannot tell a site
A fingerprint can help a site recognise the same browser across visits or sites that use the same tracking script. It does not by itself contain your name, address or passwords. A tracker would need to link it to something else, like an account or a purchase, to identify you as a person.
How unique is yours?
Uniqueness depends on the set of people compared. A rare screen size, an unusual list of fonts or a rarely used browser makes you easier to pick out; a common phone model on a common browser version blends in. Our test reports its own estimate. Treat it as an indication, not a precise probability.
What helps
- Use a browser with built-in protection. Firefox, Brave and Safari include fingerprinting defences; see the browser security guide for settings.
- Keep your setup ordinary. Many extensions, odd fonts and custom settings can make you more unique, not less.
- Block third-party trackers, which are the scripts that collect fingerprints.
- Clear cookies and sign out of accounts you do not need, since trackers combine fingerprints with cookies.
More options are in how to prevent browser fingerprinting, and the broader picture is in what browser fingerprinting is.
A realistic expectation
You cannot make yourself invisible. The goal is to reduce how much trackers can link. Retest after a change and check the full privacy scan to see how your overall exposure changes.