Show HN: I built a cross-browser extension that controls fingerprinting surfaces

A new browser add-on called Privacy Thing has arrived with a big promise: help people hide more of the little clues websites use to recognize them online. It says it can cover 53 different browser signals across 13 areas, from location and screen details to audio and battery info, and there are preview versions for Chrome and Firefox. Sounds like a privacy hero entrance, right? Well, the comment section immediately turned into a full-on reality show.

The biggest mood was skeptical but intrigued. One camp basically said, “Cute idea, but websites already break if you touch even tiny privacy settings,” with users warning that the modern web can fall apart the second you try to protect yourself. Another camp came in hotter: if this add-on gives people lots of settings to tweak, those settings could become their own weird identifying mark. In other words: trying to hide might make you stand out more.

Then came the truly spicy suggestions. One commenter pitched “fingerprint pollution,” which is a fancy way of saying your browser should throw fake noise into the mix — and hilariously imagined someone searching for a motorcycle and secretly generating a second search for “3 mo old diapers.” Another went full doom mode, arguing that only huge crowds using the exact same boring setup will ever really be safe. So yes, the product launch is real — but the real spectacle is the community asking whether privacy tools save the day, break the internet, or accidentally turn everyone into the most suspicious person in the room.