I use Ad Nauseum instead of plain UBlock so that the data sent is just garbage. You would think something simple like clicking all the ads wouldn't work, but it works well enough that Google banned it from the Chrome store
I totally forgot about Ad Nauseam! I used to use it instead of uBlock Origin (which, if I remember correctly, is what Ad Nauseam actually uses for its adblocking). Google banning it from their extensions marketplace only strengthened my loathing for Google and my resolve to use it. I don’t remember why I eventually stopped - probably the inconvenience. Now that I’m a Firefox user, I should pick that back up and give it a spin again. It was entertaining to see the visualization of all the ads it had clicked on.
I also used to use Chaff (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chaff/jgjhamliocfh...), which opens up a tab and browses on its own when the browser is idle and disappears when you start using it again. As with Ad Nauseam, the means of protecting privacy behind it is not anonymity, but rather obfuscation - muddifying your actual browsing behavior by flooding the data you leave behind with junk data (at which point it ceases to be data, I suppose). The problem with that extension was that I would sit back and wait for it to start browsing, and then I’d waste too much time watching it / customizing its behavior.
The book _Obfuscation: A User's Guide for Privacy and Protest_, written by the authors who developed Ad Nauseam and TrackMeNot, has a great chapter on chaff (the obfuscation tactic, not the Chaff extension mentioned above).
Don't do this, you're not making your browser any more private than just blocking using uBlock Origin.
Any kind of "obfuscation" extensions that change browsing behavior significantly modify the fingerprint. There are a lot of uBO and other adblocking users but very few Ad Nauseam users or users of other weird extensions.
I also wouldn't be surprised if there isn't a way to filter out those "clicks" anyway from the ad provider's side.
They are risky and mostly written by people who think they sound cool without thinking of the side effects.
Your consistent advice in your post history is don't ever use any extensions besides uBlock Origin because of fingerprinting and "privacy"
But what if I want actually use the web instead of just blocking ads. Sponsorblock, TamperMonkey, 1Password, CamelCamelCamel, etc are all useful extensions as well that make browsing the web specifically for me better.
There are so many fingerprinting techniques that it seems pointless to have a detrimental experience generally instead of using a sandboxed computer for specific dangerous activities.
I'll continue to use Ad Nauseum, despite your recommendations against it, because I'd rather have a known worthless profile than a worthless browser.
>I also wouldn't be surprised if there isn't a way to filter out those "clicks" anyway from the ad provider's side.
Theres no evidence supporting this, but Google blocking it from the Chrome store is strong evidence that filtering out those clicks is actually difficult
Edit: Also its a moot point as extensions can't be used for fingerprinting if you just don't use Chrome https://github.com/z0ccc/extension-fingerprints#extension-fi... . I assume any activity I do in Chrome is sent back to Google (or Microsoft or Brave) regardless of plugins installed.
