Can browser configuration changes or privacy extensions make DuckDuckGo, Brave, or Startpage indistinguishable in fingerprint tests?
Executive summary
Browser configuration changes and privacy extensions can significantly reduce fingerprinting exposure but do not guarantee that DuckDuckGo, Brave, and Startpage become completely indistinguishable in fingerprint tests. Brave purposely randomizes or buckets certain API outputs and was the only major browser to produce a randomized fingerprint in the EFF “Cover Your Tracks” checks cited by PCMag [1]; Startpage’s proxying of site visits gives it an operational advantage against site-side fingerprinting [2]. Available sources do not present a single experiment showing all three rendered indistinguishable after identical configuration changes (not found in current reporting).
1. Why fingerprinting is still a practical problem
Fingerprinting remains a common tracking method in 2025 because sites can combine many small signals from Web APIs and environment details to identify users; multiple overviews emphasize that browser fingerprintability is an active, evolving threat and that mainstream browsers cannot simply remove useful Web APIs without breaking the web [3]. That reality means “fixing” fingerprinting is about mitigation choices, not a single switch that makes two different products identical [3].
2. Brave’s deliberate fingerprint strategy: randomize and bucket
Brave implements an active approach: it randomizes or buckets certain API outputs and configures protections that aim to produce less-unique footprints. PCMag’s hands-on notes that Brave produced a randomized fingerprint on EFF’s Cover Your Tracks test and PrivacyTests.org consistently ranks Brave highly on privacy checks [1]. Technical writeups and commentary also document Brave’s philosophy of injecting randomness or grouping users into “one-of-few” outputs to reduce uniqueness [3].
3. DuckDuckGo: good blocking, less aggressive fingerprint obfuscation
DuckDuckGo’s browser and extension focus on tracker blocking and easy privacy features, but users and developers note DuckDuckGo does not adopt the same level of fingerprint randomization as Brave; the DuckDuckGo Android issue tracker cites that Brave randomizes fingerprints while DuckDuckGo lacks such measures [4]. Guides and comparisons credit DuckDuckGo with strong tracker-blocking and simple UX, but they also imply it relies more on blocklists and clearing storage than on API-level identity randomization [5] [6].
4. Startpage’s proxy model gives a different kind of stealth
Startpage reduces site-side fingerprinting risk by proxying visits (its “Anonymous View”), which hides user identifying details from destination sites and prevents those sites from directly collecting cookies or fingerprint inputs during proxied sessions [2]. That operational difference—interposing a proxy versus altering Web APIs—means Startpage’s effective anonymity can look unlike Brave’s or DuckDuckGo’s in tests that measure browser-exposed signals versus site-observed behavior [2] [7].
5. Extensions and settings can narrow differences but introduce new signals
Installing the same extensions (uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, etc.) and enabling strict privacy settings will align behavior on many tracker-blocking vectors across browsers, as multiple setup guides suggest [1] [8]. However, extensions and unique user-agent strings themselves become fingerprintable signals; sources warn that adding extensions increases complexity and can make users unique unless extensions are widely shared and standardized [8] [3].
6. Tests show divergence, not convergence, in real-world checks
Published tests cited by journalists show divergence: PCMag’s testing flagged Brave as uniquely providing randomized fingerprints on EFF’s tool, implying DuckDuckGo and other browsers behaved differently in the same checks [1]. PrivacyTests.org rankings also treat browsers differently on many fine-grained items; these independent test suites reflect that different mitigation strategies lead to measurable differences, not indistinguishability [1] [3].
7. What “indistinguishable” would require — and why it’s hard
To make DuckDuckGo, Brave, and Startpage fully indistinguishable in fingerprint tests would require identical external behavior across: Web API outputs, TLS/HTTP headers, user agent strings, default extensions, timing characteristics, and whether browsing is proxied. Sources show each provider chooses different trade-offs (randomization vs proxying vs blocklists), so achieving perfect parity would demand coordinated engineering changes or using the same underlying browser build and mode [3] [2] [1].
8. Practical advice and realistic expectations
If your goal is to reduce trackability, apply consistent hardening: use strict fingerprinting protections when available (Brave’s strict mode), a small set of well-known extensions, and, when appropriate, Startpage’s proxy for visiting third‑party sites to hide site-observed signals [8] [2] [1]. Expect measurable differences to remain unless you use an identical browser binary and identical runtime configuration; the current reporting does not document a simple configuration path that makes these three indistinguishable (not found in current reporting).
Limitations: this analysis uses the supplied reporting only. Sources disagree on the best trade-offs — Brave favors API randomization [1] [3], Startpage favors proxying [2], and DuckDuckGo emphasizes blocking and simplicity [4] [6]. Each approach reduces some classes of fingerprinting while leaving others measurable in standardized tests [1] [3].