Your traces · Interactive
Browser fingerprinting explained: traits and identifiers
Explore language, screen settings and stored identifiers in a browser demonstration. Learn what browser recognition can and cannot prove.
Demo results stay in this browser.
If JavaScript is unavailable, this page remains readable. Live values and demo buttons are then inactive.
Where do these values come from?
- Reported by the browser
- A browser API supplies this value; it does not verify the actual hardware.
- Estimated
- A broad class or approximation, not a precise measurement.
- Simulated
- A deliberately generated example, not an observation of your past browsing.
- Unavailable
- No usable value is available here. This means neither safe nor unsafe.
A connection has two sides.
When you visit a website, it can see the IP address of the incoming connection. That need not be your device’s address: a VPN or Tor may sit in between.
This exercise looks up neither your public IP address nor your location. The illustration explains the connection path with a fictional example. Even a region estimated from an IP would not establish your actual location.
Simplified example of a connection from a browser to a website; intermediaries such as a VPN or Tor are not shown.
Public IP
UnavailableRegion
UnavailableNo IP lookup · no location lookup
Your settings leave clues.
Fingerprinting combines browser characteristics into a recognisable pattern. Think of a description such as “green jacket, red backpack”: it may narrow down a person in a group, but it is not an identity document. A stored random code is an assigned tag instead of a fingerprint calculated from characteristics.
Browsers provide information to help pages choose a language and layout. You can see some of it here. Resize the window: the visible page area changes with it.
These are browser-reported values, not an independent check of your hardware. Privacy protections may round, change or withhold them. Language and time zone are settings, not evidence of nationality or location.
Preferred languages
UnavailableUnavailable
Browser language settings, not nationality.
Configured time zone
UnavailableUnavailable
A system setting, not a detected location.
Reported screen size
UnavailableUnavailable
Width × height in CSS pixels. May be altered or rounded.
Visible page area
UnavailableUnavailable
Width × height in CSS pixels; follows window resizing.
CSS pixels describe display dimensions, not the physical pixels of your screen.
More browser details
Pixel ratio
UnavailableUnavailable
Reported ratio of device pixels to CSS pixels; zoom may affect it.
Logical processors
UnavailableUnavailable
Available logical processors reported by the browser, not measured physical cores.
Approximate memory class
UnavailableUnavailable
A coarse browser-reported class in GB; not available in every browser.
Touch points
UnavailableUnavailable
Reported maximum simultaneous touches. Zero is also a value; this does not prove the device type.
One image, many tiny pixels.
Only your click draws fixed letters and shapes on a visible canvas. The magnifier shows a 32 × 32 pixel crop of the image data returned by the browser.
Font rendering, the system and the browser can affect pixels. Privacy protections may add noise or block pixel reads. Matching pixels do not prove uniqueness; different pixels do not reliably identify anyone. No fingerprint hash is created and no image is transmitted here.
The canvas is drawn only after your click.
The fixed example drawing
One crop, magnified eight times
Recognition does not need your name.
This demonstration begins only when you explicitly start it. It then creates a random identifier unrelated to your browser characteristics.
Choosing “Remember this demo for 24 hours” saves that identifier in this browser profile’s local storage for this exact origin (protocol, host and port). Other language pages on the same origin can read it again. Unlike a cookie, it is not automatically sent with HTTP requests; our demo code does not transmit it.
The identifier is valid for 24 hours. An expired identifier is checked and removed on the next page visit. Closing the page does not schedule background deletion. Reset removes only this demo’s identifier and leaves other settings alone.
A random demo identifier
The eight visible characters are only a shortened form.
No demo identifier saved yet. Only your click starts the demonstration.
No persistent identifier for this display.
Sources and further reading
Subject-matter and language approval is still pending.
Knowledge explained clearly. Sources and the update date appear with each guide.