Non-technical Chrome users who cannot "un-Google" can at least set shortcuts to clear cookies, history, etc.
Go to chrome://settings/searchEngines
Click "Add" and instead of typing a search engine URL, enter
chrome://settings/clearBrowserData#c
For "Keyword" one can enter a single character, e.g., "c".
Select options, e.g., Advanced tab, Time range: All time, check all boxes. (The boxes will remain checked on the next invocation.)
Now, whenever the user wants to clear the browser data, she can just type "c" in the Address Bar.
No need to keep typing "chrome://settings" or keeping a tab open for settings.
User-agent can be changed through Developer Tools, without the need for extensions, however other headers are not accessible. Technical users who avoid using extensions can use a localhost proxy to delete headers, including Cookie where it is unnecessary.
Despite all the user fingerprinting that is done using HTTP headers such as User-Agent, relatively few sites actually require User-Agent and other headers. For almost all sites, the only requirement to successfully retrieve the page is the Host and, often enough, Connection headers.
Specific resource requests can also be blocked in Developer Tools without installing extensions as a "poor man's ad blocker". Using Developer Tools, dummy Javascript resources can be loaded from local sources to remove undesirable page characteristics.
However neither ad-blockers nor stripping headers prevents all the fingerprinting. If one is not happy with browser-based tracking, then using a "modern browser" with so many advanced features to retrieve a page of text is a trade-off, and, arguably, overkill.
Go to chrome://settings/searchEngines
Click "Add" and instead of typing a search engine URL, enter
For "Keyword" one can enter a single character, e.g., "c".Select options, e.g., Advanced tab, Time range: All time, check all boxes. (The boxes will remain checked on the next invocation.)
Now, whenever the user wants to clear the browser data, she can just type "c" in the Address Bar.
No need to keep typing "chrome://settings" or keeping a tab open for settings.
User-agent can be changed through Developer Tools, without the need for extensions, however other headers are not accessible. Technical users who avoid using extensions can use a localhost proxy to delete headers, including Cookie where it is unnecessary.
Despite all the user fingerprinting that is done using HTTP headers such as User-Agent, relatively few sites actually require User-Agent and other headers. For almost all sites, the only requirement to successfully retrieve the page is the Host and, often enough, Connection headers.
Specific resource requests can also be blocked in Developer Tools without installing extensions as a "poor man's ad blocker". Using Developer Tools, dummy Javascript resources can be loaded from local sources to remove undesirable page characteristics.
However neither ad-blockers nor stripping headers prevents all the fingerprinting. If one is not happy with browser-based tracking, then using a "modern browser" with so many advanced features to retrieve a page of text is a trade-off, and, arguably, overkill.