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Hardware: AudioContext

Updated 6 months ago by Yana Shch

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The AudioContext fingerprint (also known as "audio fingerprint") is a hash derivative of your machine's audio stack. The way it works is that a website asks your browser to simulate a sinusoidal function of how it plays audio files based on the audio setting and hardware you have installed. This sinusoid is converted into a hash function and sent to servers and used as additional entropy in browser fingerprinting.

Fingerprints test

You can check what information about your AudioContext websites can retrieve here.

AudioContext modes

In Multilogin, you are able to control your AudioContext read-outs by either adding a persistent random noise to the readout or allowing the website to see the real audio fingerprint of your device.

Noise mode

By enabling the Noise mode in the AudioContext section, Multilogin will modify the audio stack on a browser level, which will eventually produce a unique audio fingerprint.

Since the audio stack is modified with random values, websites may perceive the fingerprint as being 100% unique, if statistical analysis is applied.

Off mode

When AudioContext masking is set to Off, websites will see the real audio fingerprint of your PC.

Setting the mode to Off can be advantageous in cases where websites react badly to 100% unique AudioContext readouts.  

Remember! In the real world, audio fingerprint hashes are not unique, since multiple copies of your machine and audio stacks exist elsewhere in the world. So by revealing your real audio fingerprint, you only fall within the same segment of users who have the same audio hardware setup. Furthermore, by altering other fingerprints, you increase the entropy by which websites will be able to see your browser profiles as separate identities.

A way to further decrease the entropy of your browser profiles, and thus make them better blend in within the normal distribution of users, is to run Multilogin on Mac computers. Because Macs are very similar in their build nature, their AudioContext fingerprints are very similar. In most cases, same models will have identical hashes.

Opening browser profiles on multiple machines

Don't forget! If you've created a browser profile with AudioContext masking set to Noise and open it on various machines with different hardware installed, the website will see that the audio fingerprint hash is not persistent across multiple launches

The added noise is persistent. However, it is added as a filter on top of the existing machine fingerprint. So, if the machine has changed, then the readouts also change.

The AudioContext hash with added Noise is not persistent

Below is a screenshot example. The same browser profile is opened on 2 different machines. Although the noise is persistent for that profile, the audio context readouts are still different.

Solutions if non-changing readouts are required on multiple devices

  1. Run Multilogin on identically configured Virtual Machines (VM) or Virtual Private Servers (VPS) with Hardware fingerprints set to Noise mode. Since these machines will be set up the same way, the masked audio fingerprints will remain consistent on multiple machines.
  2. Run Multilogin on identical PC models with the same hardware, driver and OS setup. Since these machines have the same hardware setup, the masked hardware prints will remain consistent on multiple machines.
  3. Run Multilogin on the same Mac computers. The same logic applies, but also helps with blending in better, as described above.
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