Hello,
I’ve been using GNU/Linux as my primary operating system for several years. Every year, various websites release statistical reports on their users, detailing the operating systems they use.
I’ve noticed that many privacy add-ons spoof the User Agent to make the browser appear as if it’s on Windows. Despite using GNU/Linux, my browser presents itself as if it were on Windows 10.
My dilemma is whether I should switch the User Agent to Linux. By spoofing, I’m potentially decreasing the statistics for Linux in these regular reports, which might lead to Linux not being taken seriously due to a falsely low userbase.
However, on the flip side, pretending to be on Windows helps reduce my web fingerprint. What are your thoughts on this?
It doesn’t help shit reducing your fingerprint. Why should it?
Usually you spoof another browser, not OS. Spoofing chrome all the time is nuts. It may solve one problem in the short term but won’t fix it in the long term.
A website maintainer can even see that no firefox user tries to load the website. Hence, she doesn’t need to optimize it for firefox.
Most sites don’t track you that much. If you regularly visit websites that track you very much, maybe you should rethink your browsing behavior. Use a vpn, clean cookies for all websites you do not trust/ visit regularly and use ublock origin. That’ll solve 99% of all considerations. For anything else use Tor or I2p