Defending against WebGL fingerprinting by reporting a fake value.
WebGL Fingerprint Defender is a browser extension that let you easily hide your real WebGL fingerprint by reporting a random fake value.
According to many tech blogs, completely blocking WebGL API is not a good idea, therefore reporting a fake fingerprint could be the best solution to better protect your privacy. This add-on simply adds a small noise to the actual fingerprint and renews it every time you visit a website or reload a page.
With the browser's WebGL API, in general, two types of fingerprints can be generated. One with WebGL constants and the other with an image that is rendered with the WebGL API. This add-on can spoof both values at the same time.
To disable this add-on, please visit the extensions page in your browser and then click on the disable button. Please note that this add-on does not have any toolbar icon/button.
This extension is made in collaboration with the author of "Canvas Fingerprint Defender":
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/canvas-fingerprint-defend/lanfdkkpgfjfdikkncbnojekcppdebfp
If you have a feature request or found a bug to report, please fill out the bug report form on the add-on's homepage (https://mybrowseraddon.com/webgl-defender.html).
Latest reviews
- (2023-06-30) Error Breen: It works perfectly for latest chrome, but can't work for Chrome 89 and above version. Since my browser can't upgrade to the new version due to some reasons, so I need this. Thanks for your nice extension !
- (2023-06-13) Rainbow Warrior Princess: Sometimes when reloading the page: Is fingerprint spoofed by persistent noise: false https://webbrowsertools.com/webgl-fingerprint
- (2023-04-15) Richard Gangi: Absolutely useless. Even while it says my fingerprint is randomized, I'm on browserleaks seeing that it's not
- (2023-02-03) Giang Nguyen: need fix, it not working, I'm using https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/
- (2022-12-15) Antonio Macias: aun recuerdoo cuando era indispensable coontar con estaa app para la utenticidad y seguridad de tus cuentas !!
- (2022-11-08) Locutus Of Borg: Not amused getting https://mybrowseraddon.com/webgl-defender.html?v=0.1.6&p=0.1.5&type=update every time I launch my browser now. Never use to get it. It never finishes loading. I've tried to go to their bug site but all I get is that page again. I really need this fixed.
- (2022-08-27) Neeraj Verma: https://webbrowsertools.com/webgl-fingerprint. This website is still able to detect wheather we are spoofing WebGL Fingerprint or not so now what is the benefit of using it?
- (2022-06-03) Андрей: Несовершенно конечно, но это проблема не расширения а некоторых сайтов, которые хотят знать больше о пользователях.
- (2022-02-25) Serega007: Ломает большинство сайтов где используется WebGL, например на гугл картах, карта просто становится чёрной, при посмотре улиц вокруг непонятные точки с волнами, онлайн браузерные игры вовсе перестают адекватно работать
- (2022-01-03) Rainbow Warrior Princess: 'Is fingerprint spoofed by persistent noise' : false https://webbrowsertools.com/webgl-fingerprint/
- (2021-10-17) MadCake: Does what it claims to in the most convenient way possible. I don't know why would anyone need a whitelist for this addon (seen this as a downside in another review) - it's hard to imagine a situation where a legit website feature would be broken because of what this addon does, this is not an adblocked that removes parts of the page outright. I also don't think it is fair to criticize the addon for spoofing being detectable - it might be technically impossible due to addon api limitations. It would be a nice feature to have, though.
- (2021-08-11) pogue972: I mostly use this extension in my primary browser, Opera (as Opera is on the Blink engine, which is based on Chromium, it can install Chrome extensions) and boy could it really use some options. I realize I'm posting this as a review for the both Chrome & Opera, but many of the criticisms still apply to both. Firstly, when I went to install this extension in Chrome (to write this review) I got an error that popped up from Google that said "This extension is not trusted by Enhanced Safe Browsing" and gave me a link to learn more which sent me here: https://support.google.com/chrome_webstore/answer/2664769 Second, my god the notifications and sounds. In Chrome I assume you can disable this. In Opera, unfortunately you cannot. So, the constant popups and beeping gets OUTRAGEOUS on some websites I visit. I filed a bug report on this with the author of the plugin but still haven't heard back. Third, this should be optionally combined with the author's other plugins - Canvas Fingerprint Defender, Font Fingerprint Defender, & Audiocontext Fingerprint Defender. The author makes another plugin I use called Privacy Tweaks I use as well, because it has optional geolocation blocking and spits out a random timezone to the websites you're visiting. Besides that, it's a pretty standard ad + tracker blocker. I don't know why he can't make another optional "defender" type plugin that would defend against all that other stuff without separating them. If anyone knows one that blocks all these, please let me know in the comments below. The author has separate extensions for geoblocking and timezone switching, so I don't know why he couldn't combine all these defender plugins into one single extension. Fourth, yes, as many people have mentioned, this - and the other defender plugins need a pause/disable button and a whitelist. That should be standard for any kind of extension of this type. Any kind of privacy extensions that blank block content on all websites is simply not acceptable. Some websites just won't operate if you're blocking this type of content and so a whitelist is MANDATORY! Otherwise you have to go into extensions, disable it, do your surfing, then go back and turn it back on. Finally, sites CAN detect this as a spoofed WebGL value, as opposed to a fake one. When you click on the extension under your extension tabs or the icon you have pinned and choose "What's my fingerprint?" It takes you to this website: https://webbrowsertools.com/webgl-fingerprint/ where the value for "Is browser webgl fingerprint spoofed" reads "true". Ideally, this would read "false" as it would send fake WebGL packet to the server and not come back detecting it as spoofed, making your browser look suspicious in the eyes of some web hosts.
- (2021-08-11) Jessi “Jela Miraj” Cady: A nice addition to fingerprint defending options. I do, however, have an issue where chrome says "This extension is not trusted by Enhanced Safe Browsing." Hopefully this can be remedied. I haven't looked into whether this extension tries to reduce the issue of randomness becoming too much uniqueness...
- (2021-07-19) Damien J: excellent work
- (2021-03-31) Stanton McCandlish: Does exactly what it should do and claims it does. Tested at https://browserleaks.com/webgl where it defeated both forms of WebGL hashing. I like that this is a one-exploit fix instead of a plugin claiming to spoof all forms of user fingerprinting, since new methods of that come up all the time. It's better to be certain that you have a particular weakness patched up because you have an extension that corresponds to it exactly, than to go without preventing a leak because you assumed it was included in some catchall extension but it wasn't. PS: Anyone who cannot figure out that they can click on the extension's icon and pick "Show|Hide desktop notifications" simply doesn't DESERVE to use this extension. Heh. Really, the developer should just turn this option off by default, since it's obviously the only thing causing unhappy feedback. PPS: Yes, it may trigger some additional two-factor authentication requests from some sites. This is not actually a bad thing. More sites need to be doing more of this, and we just need to get used to it, as we got used to "password123" not being a good password, and even "@3'4e9sef!J29x" not being a good password if used on a bunch of sites. However, spoofing this kind of stuff actually *shouldn't* trigger a 2FA request, much less a refusal to provide services, so if it does, you should complain to the site in question.
- (2020-11-30) Geronimo553: It use to work. But now doileak(.com) can detect IP with this app enabled. I have ran this for over a year without issue. So the newest detection software see's through it. Removed from chrome and using other options. Use to work great, just zero updates and zero support.
- (2020-10-01) eric mcgillveray: i tested myself before and after. failed the test after installing the extensions. https://panopticlick.eff.org/
- (2020-09-23) Peter Cohen: Won't work. It's trivial for a site to know you're using this plugin. Hence you are fingerprinted. You've merely replaced your WEBGL-fingerprint with a WEBGL-blocker-fingerprint. If the fingerprint spoofing was undetectable, that might work.
- (2020-08-12) OutZero Z: Didn't work
- (2020-08-12) TEHMINA KOSAR: hate it
- (2020-08-03) stíobhart matulevicz: It's great at what it does. And I was shocked to see just how many sites are using browser fingerprinting of one sort or another. But it really needs some configuration options. You can't even turn it on and off from the menubar if it breaks a site. You've got to actually open your browser's preferences and disable it, which is about as user-unfriendly as you can get.
- (2020-07-13) Chris G. Simmons: App works great. BUT it needs an exemption feature (ie: do not block fingerprint on selected sites). I have to keep going into my settings to disable it for my bank sites. Thank you!
- (2020-04-05) Nosce te ipsum: Netflix always checks you out before, after and sometimes during video playing. This one helps spoofing that one. Thanks WebGL Fingerprint Defender! I actually thought Netflix was morally superior (my bad) and that this extension didn't help that much (my bad too). Really! Thanks XX Fingerprint Defender. I already installed all of the plugins and they actually work well. I had no problems on any site.
- (2020-03-23) gdfshfshs gfdsgsd: Need Source Code thanks
- (2020-03-02) Tomasz R: This doesn't really work
- (2019-09-14) waterfall: On the https://browserleaks.com/webgl time to time a real "WebGL Image Hash" is shown, although the extension notifies of a fake. Same thing on https://webbrowsertools.com/webgl-fingerprint/ . From time to time the same one appears "Fingerprint ID Method: red solid box".
- (2019-08-24) Sina: Thank you for the extensions, but some websites like starbucks.com can detect the spoofing, so they don't allow any login. The problem is within `parameter` spoofing.
Statistics
Installs
10,000
history
Category
Rating
3.3214 (28 votes)
Last update / version
2023-04-26 / 0.1.7
Listing languages
en