Same user-agent and accept headers for all AirVPN users.

[Atheena 2]

​Hi everyone!

​Now that we are clients from AirVPN, we are being disguised as users within the same network, we appear as coming from the same AirVPN servers. However, as a lot of you already know our browsers give very unique data to the world, so even hiding behind the same numbers,they can know which user is which based on that data. I'm sure most of the people here already knows Panopticlick.

With this in mind, just using one of those firefox extensions to change your user-agent is not really useful, as you are creating very unique sets of values that identifies you. I think that the best aproach is the one that the guys from ​Tor Browser are using, hiding all their users behind the same user-agent and other accept-* headers.

​What do you think about using the same set of values for all the users of AirVPN? Choosing the same values as Tor Browser could be a good idea, but the main idea is trying to be as similar as possible between us.

[PirateParty 49]

I think this is a very good idea! The problem is there is such a wide selection of user agents out there. I don't think we want to be using the same user agent as Tor though, we should really find the most popular one and use that as default.

[6501166996442015 35]

​What do you think about using the same set of values for all the users of AirVPN? Choosing the same values as Tor Browser could be a good idea, but the main idea is trying to be as similar as possible between us.

 

I think this is a very bad idea in every aspect, from functionality to the scope of the VPN provider. If someone wants to use some certain user agent/header flags then they can choose and apply their own. 

 

The people on TOR do that because TOR is always going to be on Firefox. What if I'm using Chrome? Or on my tablet?

 

I really hope that AirVPN doesn't consider implementing this in any way, shape or form. 

[zhang888 1066]

Hi Atheena,

 

You can run the TorBrowser as a browser without Tor. See some details here :

https://github.com/micahflee/torbrowser-launcher/issues/2

 

This way you will be identified on Panopticlick just like a TorBrowserBundle user, just without using the Tor network.

 

I am not sure we all want to do this as a mandatory setting, though.

 

 

Regards,

[Atheena 2]

​

 

​

Hi Atheena,

 

You can run the TorBrowser as a browser without Tor. See some details here :

https://github.com/micahflee/torbrowser-launcher/issues/2

 

This way you will be identified on Panopticlick just like a TorBrowserBundle user, just without using the Tor network.

 

I am not sure we all want to do this as a mandatory setting, though.

 

 

Regards,

 

​Thanks for that information. In any case, I'm not thinking about any mandatory setting, it's more like a community idea that could be followed or not if that matches your interests.

 

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​What do you think about using the same set of values for all the users of AirVPN? Choosing the same values as Tor Browser could be a good idea, but the main idea is trying to be as similar as possible between us.

 

I think this is a very bad idea in every aspect, from functionality to the scope of the VPN provider. If someone wants to use some certain user agent/header flags then they can choose and apply their own. 

 

The people on TOR do that because TOR is always going to be on Firefox. What if I'm using Chrome? Or on my tablet?

 

I really hope that AirVPN doesn't consider implementing this in any way, shape or form. 

 

​I could understand that a Tor Browser fingerprint could create some problems, it was just an example to explain the idea. But if we are talking about another fingerprint shared between all of us... why exactly do you say this is a bad idea in every aspect from functionality to the scope of the VPN provider? Can you elaborate a little bit that idea, please?

​

If you are using a VPN but you are letting your browser talk with every server in a very particular way, or letting all of them using cookies on your browser... wel.. maybe the middle-agents have no clue about the contents of the connection, but you are really helping the endpoints to identify you easily.

​

​Also and as I said before, I'm talking about a community based idea, which could be followed by any one who want to and anyone who uses a browser that allows this kind of behaviour as Firefox or Chrome.