
Anti-detect browsers emerged as a response to the spread of browser fingerprinting technologies – the covert identification of users based on a combination of their device’s parameters and environment. Modern websites, besides using cookies, track IP addresses, geolocation, and dozens of browser characteristics (such as Canvas, WebGL, the list of fonts, User-Agent, etc.) to distinguish and link visitors. As a result, even when in incognito mode or after changing one’s IP, a user can be detected by their “digital fingerprint” – a unique set of properties of their browser.
In fact, when I first started my journey in these internet realms, my expertise in digital security was evolving—and continues to grow—and I eventually came to understand browser fingerprints. At first, I believed cookies—collected by those pesky search engines that tracked what I viewed—were to blame, then I learned about browser fingerprints and long denied that I needed to learn to work with and understand them. Really, just when you finally figure out proxies, learn how to change and preserve cookies, here comes a new twist. Moreover, it turns out that fingerprints are also sold, and the price is not exactly low. In short, money is made on everything! But that’s beside the point now!
An anti-detect browser is a modified browser (often based on Chromium or Firefox) that substitutes or masks these properties (fingerprints), preventing websites from unequivocally identifying the user and detecting multi-accounting.