Browser Timezone & Privacy Concerns

How can I hide my “timezone” from sniffing sites?

From my understanding, websites can access both the timezone of my browser (without using javascript) and the timezone of my local machine (using javascript). my question being

  • If a website has access to my local machine’s timezone, does it mean it has access to other information on/about my local machine?
  • According to Privacy - How can I hide my “timezone” from sniffing sites? - Super User, we must disable JavaScript to block timezone access. However disabling javascript is not really feasible as it breaks most of websites. Is there a workaround that allows us to block JavaScript from running specific commands?
  • Maybe my understanding of JavaScript is incorrect, but if a website has the privilege of running any program on my computer through the web browser, it can retrieve all the information it needs. If I don’t disable JavaScript while using the browser, I don’t see the point in resisting fingerprinting, like spoofing my device info.

appreciate any help!

Set your system time to UTC.

could you please provide a link to an article or video about how a website could have access to information on local machine?

Your web browser gives up that information when asked by a site.

is it possible to

  • disable permission for a software running on local machine from attaining local timezone and other information? (like firewall or something similar)
  • disable permission for a website from attaining local timezone information passed to the browser inside browser using browser extension?

There may be browser extensions that will spoof your TZ data.

Set your system time to UTC.

but then the time display on my system would be incorrect wouldn’t it

Album
link
fedilink
56d

It’ll also be wrong in every application you run in your browser. Even local sites.

Ulrich
link
fedilink
16d

Yeah I tried this as well and royally fucked myself. Not worth it.

@pHr34kY@lemmy.world
link
fedilink
1
edit-2
5d

Firefox has a fingerprint resistance setting that sets the clock to UTC. It messes up a lot of sites. There’s 10 million people in my timezone so I just leave it.

thanks a lot

Yes.

Create a post

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

  • Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn’t great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
  • Don’t promote proprietary software
  • Try to keep things on topic
  • If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
  • Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
  • Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

  • 0 users online
  • 124 users / day
  • 1.05K users / week
  • 1.3K users / month
  • 4.58K users / 6 months
  • 1 subscriber
  • 3.85K Posts
  • 97.2K Comments
  • Modlog