WEB BROWSERS LEAVE 'FINGERPRINTS' BEHIND AS YOU SURF THE NET

New research by the Electronic Frontier
Foundation (EFF) has found that an overwhelming majority of
web browsers have unique signatures -- creating
identifiable "fingerprints" that could be used to track you
as you surf the Internet.

EFF Research Shows More Than 8 in 10 Browsers Have Unique,
Trackable Signatures.

The findings were the result of an experiment EFF conducted
with volunteers who visited http://panopticlick.eff.org/.
The website anonymously logged the configuration and
version information from each participant's operating
system, browser, and browser plug-ins -- information that
websites routinely access each time you visit -- and
compared that information to a database of configurations
collected from almost a million other visitors. EFF found
that 84% of the configuration combinations were unique and
identifiable, creating unique and identifiable browser
"fingerprints." Browsers with Adobe Flash or Java plug-ins
installed were 94% unique and trackable.

https://panopticlick.eff.org/browser-uniqueness.pdf