Brave Adds Protections Against GPU Fingerprinting

The latest version of the privacy-focused Brave web browser includes new protections against GPU and graphics driver fingerprinting.

“WebGL and WebGPU APIs expose detailed information about users’ graphics cards and drivers that tracking companies use for browser fingerprinting,” Brave vice president of privacy and security Shivan Kaul Sahib explains. “Brave now de-identifies the vendor and renderer strings these APIs report, and adds noise to the list of supported extensions to combat fingerprinting while preserving website functionality.”

Starting with Brave 1.93, these protections are being enabled by default in the desktop and Android versions of the browser, though they’re rolling out over the next several days. To scrub the signals trackers collect, Brave now does the following:

• Replaces the WebGL vendor and renderer strings with generic strings so that all Brave users use the same values
• Empties the WebGPU adapter descriptors
• Randomizes the WebGL extension list so that hash-based fingerprinters see a different value for each session, site, and storage area

Brave can automatically configure this behavior on a per-site basis to fix breaking problems. And Brave users can turn off these graphics protections, disable fingerprinting protection entirely, or switch off Shields altogether.

Brave recommends–as I do–that you check your web browser with the EFF’s Cover Your Tracks website to see how well protected you are. Among other things, this site now displays the WebGL vendor and renderer strings your browser exposes.

You can download Brave for Linux, macOS, Windows 11, and Windows 11 on Arm from the Brave website.