this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2026
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Privacy

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I recently tried to clean up my digital life. I switched to Linux and switched to GrapheneOS and made more use of my proton subscription to replace google. But I have a few questions :

I tried https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ on Librewolf on my PC and Vanadium on my phone and it say I have a nearly unique fingerprint. Is the benefit of using a privacy focused browser neglected by the low userbase and unique fingerprint ?

I did not have a great digital hygiene before so I have a google account, meta... How do I clean this up ? Are services like Incogni any good or is it just marketing ?

Finally I wanted to use tails with persistent storage to use as a live system if I ever need to use a PC that is not my own to connect to my accounts. However, I don't want the ISP to know I use Tor. I see it as a big "I have something to hide" flag for the ISP. But my understanding is if I install a VPN on tails it will be Tor over VPN (bad if I understand correctly) instead of VPN over Tor. Should I use something else than tails since I only want/need always on VPN with kill switch.

Thanks a lot for your help. I want to say the journey is much easier than what I anticipated. The hardest part is making people switch around me. The lobbying has started.

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[โ€“] TiredTiger@lemmy.ml 6 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Mullvad Browser and LibreWolf have two completely different strategies to avoid fingerprinting. Mullvad Browser operates on everyone having the same configuration to blend in - if you want to use it, you need to avoid changing any of the settings. LibreWolf, on the other hand, works by spoofing a different fingerprint every session. It will look unique to Cover Your Tracks and the like, but it will be different every time you close and reopen it. Again, it works best if you don't mess with the settings.

I believe both Mullvad Browser and LibreWolf come with uBlockOrigin pre-installed. Just about anything you want to do regarding blocking ads or scripts can be done in UBO's settings; do NOT add extra "privacy" add-ons as you will only make yourself easier to fingerprint.

If you're looking for something to use with actual accounts (like banking), use hardened Firefox (with arkenfox) or a hardened chromium browser. Neither Mullvad Browser nor LibreWolf (and especially NOT Tor) are designed for that use case.

As an aside, you can use multiple browsers for different use cases. I honestly think that's best practices at this point, but you'd have to be good about not overlapping your browsing on them (i.e., not visiting/logging into the same website on multiple browsers).

[โ€“] Username85920@lemmy.ml 1 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Thank you ! It's way more clear now.

Hardened browsers prioritize security over privacy right ? Vanadium is that kind of browser ?