🌐 Website Issue | dom.battery.enabled incorrect description "Website owners can track the battery status of your device" #769

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2019-02-21T15:08:49Z

ghost commented

2019-02-21 15:08:49 +00:00

(Migrated from github.com)

I was having a look through ghacks/user.js and I noticed this one:

/* 2502: disable Battery Status API
 * Initially a Linux issue (high precision readout) that was fixed.
 * However, it is still another metric for fingerprinting, used to raise entropy.
 * e.g. do you have a battery or not, current charging status, charge level, times remaining etc
 * [NOTE] From FF52+ Battery Status API is only available in chrome/privileged code. see [1]
 * [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/1313580 ***/
   // user_pref("dom.battery.enabled", false);

So I don't think it's strictly fair anymore to say that "website owners can track the battery status of your device". As of FF52+ you'd have to have a malicious addon installed that was reporting that back not just "on a website".

I was having a look through ghacks/user.js and I noticed this one: ``` /* 2502: disable Battery Status API * Initially a Linux issue (high precision readout) that was fixed. * However, it is still another metric for fingerprinting, used to raise entropy. * e.g. do you have a battery or not, current charging status, charge level, times remaining etc * [NOTE] From FF52+ Battery Status API is only available in chrome/privileged code. see [1] * [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/1313580 ***/ // user_pref("dom.battery.enabled", false); ``` So I don't think it's strictly fair anymore to say that "website owners can track the battery status of your device". As of FF52+ you'd have to have a malicious addon installed that was reporting that back not just "on a website".

privacytoolsIO commented

2019-04-02 04:09:57 +00:00

(Migrated from github.com)

Thanks

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Reference: privacyguides/privacytools.io#769