I’m being tracked on 2 sites I don’t want to be. They are quite innocuous until you work out just how much they are gathering. I just prefer not to be tracked always by them. I’ve done everything except spoof device ID as I don’t know how. But I think this will be the answer.
Can any of the illustrious IT experts on SF give me an idea please as to where I can find info on how to spoof device ID? Right now Android phones including a Samsung.
You could look at the Ghostery browser for Android.
Or any of ths lot
Thanks @billybutcher . The websites seem to be able to recognise the device even using Firefox incognito. They can see through VPN’s so they’re not doing it on the IP address. Other than the Google thing which I’ve sorted, the only thing left they must be matching is physical device ID. So, without rebuilding/rooting my device, I’d like to withhold device ID or at least spoof it
I did use to use Ghostery browser extension a long time ago. Dropped it, as it messed up other things, but will give it another go.
I’ve got Bravo (also in your article) and use it occasionally. Though it’s not smooth. I might specifically test it but wouldn’t hold out much hope of it spoofing the device ID…
Ta muchly
Is your phone rooted? The only way I know of doing it on an unverified phone involves a factory reset… Which isn’t ideal.
There are apps on the Play Store you can use if you have rooted your phone. I’ve not used or tested them however so afraid I can’t recommend any.
Ta @Gareth I might have a wander through Playstore too, good idea. I have a feeling this needs a specific tool that I don’t know if exists yet.
There has been a change in Android 12 that allows apps and sites to recognise the device and location easier even with a dedicated IP address in the UK, especially on Xiaomi devices.
The likes of Sky go and BBC I player are more able to locate you so I use a GPS location hider app which works well.
Yes Xiaomi, or at least their Poco phones, don’t work well with some VPN’s. They don’t seem to be able to add subprocesses to the stack somehow (I’m probably not using the right language).
I will google your GPS suggestion but all location settings on my Samsung and Poco are always set not to operate and I am absolutely sure these 2 websites are harvesting my Device ID and retaining it to match on later visits and I would like to put up a fake one that I change each visit.
You could install Virtual Android, which creates a whole new virtual phone and allows you to change device ID at will.
With sky go on my Xiaomi using android 11 it connects ok with my dedicated IP as do my tablets, my Xiaomi 12 with android 12 miui 13, does not with all location services turned off, but will with a location changer switched on.
Yes, this is what I see as well. For me, to use ITV player (ITVX now) I had to enable location services, spoof the GPS location and also change the time zone and location.
Thanks JohnH I will give that a go.
@hairbear I had heard of interrogating those settings being in the ways tv providers etc. can get round VPN’s.
But it looks like Android 12 might have a new field that is giving away information, a field that wasn’t there before? If so, then it would be very unsporting of Google not to make that field user accessible, which I gather was happening on some privacy fields in much earlier versions of Android, but not recent versions. Has Google bowed to commercial pressure and snuck non-user-accessible fields back in, that are able to be interrogated by others I wonder?
I’d be interested to know how it goes.
This post got me thinking… I need to install Xmind 8 on my Galaxy tab S6 so I looked up the Android OS required and then looked at the OS on the tab S6. It was Android 9, but I saw there was an update to Android 10. So I clicked on update… After Android 10 , it informed me there was another update? Just after I started to get pop up’s from Google (how do you rate Schmidt cuisines)?
Now updated to Android 11 and it’s telling me that another update available… how many more updates?
And I’ll be seriously watching this tread or getting on to our IT department as the software on our devices should block this (the Google pop up’s), unless I authorize them. 