Enhancing Online Privacy: Design and Evaluation of a Browser Extension Against Non-Consensual Tracking
摘要
This article presents a browser extension with a new approach to face advanced online tracking methods. The extension combines three main actions: blocking known trackers based on a defined list, modifying technical data on the user’s device to protect against fingerprinting, and heuristic detection of unknown trackers. Users can also view and manage detected trackers via an intuitive and straightforward user interface offered by the extension. Several tests of different websites (media, e-commerce) show the effectiveness of the extension, blocking trackers, and the reduction of information recovered for the uniqueness of the fingerprint, which was measured with AmIUnique. Compared with other extensions such as uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, and CanvasBlocker, this solution enables us to understand emerging threats better and identify potential areas for future improvement.