The New Web Tracking Method Using Favicons, Explained

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[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

This was on my YouTube homepage, and it blew my mind. Thankfully Brave (my browser) has fixed the issue, and it doesn't seem to affect Firefox-based browsers at all, but a lot of other browsers are susceptible to this! Even if you use Brave: make sure to clear your cache often!

Basically, the way I understood it: they redirect you to a bunch of different servers, and some cache the favicon, while others don't, and they use which favicons you've got as an ID. It's a really clever and scary technique.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Wish I had known about this months ago, my old phone had its DDG favicon change suddenly to something weird. I figured something was up but had no idea what or how to fix it. Guess I was being tracked.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

my old phone had its DDG favicon change suddenly to something weird.

That ain't how it works. The favicon looks the same, and it's not on DDG, it's on, for example: Google (not sure if they where the ones doing this, though).

Your problem sounds like either the browser glitched and grabbed the wrong icon (maybe you clicked on a link and hit back?), or your cache was poisoned.