Identify Every Visitor

Browser fingerprinting is a collection of methods used to gather data about a person’s browsing activity. It collects details such as the user’s operating system, browser type, screen resolution, time zone, keyboard layout, and more. By analyzing these pieces of information, it generates a unique "digital fingerprint" for each user. This identifier stays consistent across multiple browsing sessions, making it a dependable way to recognize visitors, even when traditional tools like cookies are unavailable.

For businesses, browser fingerprinting provides several key advantages. It allows for more precise and reliable visitor identification, which can help personalize user experiences, improve reporting and fraud detection, and enhance the overall performance of a website. By understanding a visitor’s unique browser fingerprint, businesses can optimize their platforms to better meet their audience’s needs, leading to improved user satisfaction and higher conversion rates.

When someone visits your website for the first time, a small piece of information called a "cookie" is saved in their browser. This cookie contains a unique code that helps identify them. If the same person visits your site again and their browser has a matching cookie in your system, you can be confident it’s the same visitor returning.

However, cookies aren’t foolproof. It’s relatively easy for visitors to block or delete cookies, either intentionally or through privacy settings. In situations where cookies can’t be relied on, there’s another method called "browser fingerprinting." This technique creates a detailed digital profile of a user’s device based on its unique characteristics, allowing you to identify them with impressive accuracy, even if they’ve tried to hide their identity.

Mobile device fingerprinting collects information about a user’s device and combines it to create a unique identifier, or "fingerprint," for that specific device. The type of data used for this process depends on the operating system, such as iOS, Android, or others, and is different from the information gathered through web browsers. Even if a user clears the app’s cache or data, the fingerprint can still be used to recognize their device reliably.

Browser fingerprinting works by gathering and analyzing various pieces of information from a visitor’s web browser and device to create a unique identifier for that individual. This method is carefully designed to detect small differences between browsers, even among users with the same device model or operating system.

What makes browser fingerprinting effective is its ability to create a highly detailed and unique profile, referred to as a "high entropy identifier." This means the collected data points form a complex combination that can distinguish one user from millions of others on the internet.

For example, while many people may use the same operating system version, factors like installed software, browser settings, and minor hardware variations all contribute to forming a one-of-a-kind digital fingerprint. This technique provides a high level of accuracy in identifying visitors, outperforming traditional methods that rely on easily altered tools like cookies. As a result, browser fingerprinting becomes a powerful way to recognize users without depending on methods that can be easily manipulated or blocked.

The signals or attributes used in this process include, but are not limited to:

• Type and version of the web browser
• Operating system and its version
• Screen resolution and color depth
• Installed fonts and plugins
• Time zone and language settings
• Use of ad blockers

These signals are gathered by scripts that run quietly in the background of a visitor’s browser. These scripts carefully analyze the user’s software and hardware setup without affecting or disrupting their browsing experience. The result is a "fingerprint," which is essentially a unique combination of these characteristics, creating a highly distinctive profile capable of identifying the visitor across multiple browsing sessions.

What makes this method particularly valuable is its ability to remain effective even when traditional identification techniques, such as cookies, are rendered useless—whether through incognito mode, cleared browser data, or other privacy measures.