(this isnt a question about how to make invidious more secure/private i just want google to stop knowing everything i do and every device i have) I like watching youtube videos. I hate google. I try invidious. It’s pretty cool.
I watch the videos I like on it. But I get suspicous. The channels I wacth even after I change my Ip, clear my cookies, change my tor circuts, even change my entire os to something real private like tails or qubes with whonix , ARE STILL RECOMMENDED TO ME. So I do a test. I watch channels I don’t like. There it is. I feel like google is laughing in my face
Whats worse, I went on a different device and the same videos are there :(.
ive tried vpns, tor, tails, whonix in qubes, quad9, and nothing works. what do i do now?
(im not concerned about youtube synching reccomendations im concerned about google knowing what i like, and what devices i have no matter what tools i use)
I’ve seen a handful of your posts before. I don’t think Google is still tracking you.
If you were to open YouTube in one tab, and Invidious in another, Google could maybe correlate the two (realistically, even that is enough seperation) but you wouldn’t notice anything. Invidious uses one token for multiple users, so if YouTube is recommending something to you, it’s recommending it to everyone using the instance. That only really applies to the frontpage though, when you watch a video, those recommendations are based on the video you’re watching.
You describe using a lot of services that help protect your privacy, but you don’t seem to understand when, why, and how to use them properly (e.g. Qubes is security focused, and incidentally good for privacy, while Tails is privacy focused and decent for security). I’d suggest taking a look at privacyguides.org (not affiliated) for a more in depth explanation of various services.
i dont watch videos on youtube on linux anymore i watch youtube through invidious on tor. i clear my idenity. I go to a different device, ios, normal guy safari, go to invidious, the videos are there too. if google can do it through invidious its realistick to assume it can through any website. thanks for the resources though )
Would you mind sharing screenshots (or at the very least name specific examples)?
What you’re describing is technologically and financially infeasible for Google to do at scale (or even to one specific person). If Google were able to track you that well, they wouldn’t modify the recommendations for you, they would quietly add it to an ad profile on you. The only reason the YouTube algorithm exists is to keep people on the platform for longer, when you use invidious, you are losing YouTube money, so they have no financial incentive to modify their algorithm for you.
If you’re using a small few person instance, then what you watch can actually influence the recommendations (at least until the token rotates), but that isn’t Google tracking you specifically. If you use a more popular instance (like nerdvpn or nadeko) what you watch will do little to influence the front page algorithm.
As I mentioned in my previous comment, I’d suggest you look into how the various privsec technologies you’re using actually work, and also look at how companies are actually able to track you. If you just assume a company can do something because they’re big, powerful, and scary, suddenly the company seems much bigger, more powerful, and scary than they really are. It’s also important to remember that just because something can be used to correlate activity with the user doing, that doesn’t mean it’s something that can be done at scale.
Judging from your previous posts and comments, it sounds like you’re quite new to privacy. This kind of mentality (in one form or another) is very common amongst people who are new to caring about their privacy. Surveillance has been happening for your entire life, so it’s not going to hurt to take a bit to think about things with a clearer head. Of course, if you’re in a situation where lack of privacy might cause physical harm, find help ASAP, but generally you can take things at a slower pace to help on the long run. That’s not to say stop caring at all, but you don’t need to suddenly drop everything and move to a bunker in the woods. Too much change at once can lead to privacy fatigue, which only makes it less likely that you’ll escape any of the surveillance of the modern world.
thanks for the advice man :)
idk how to clean metadata reliably yet but heres what i see: Vox, Markiplier, someordanairygamers, penguinz0, firship, thehatedone, mentaloutlaw
do these show up for you?
Yeah, that’s generally what most invidious pages look like. Some lean much more into political news, but otherwise it’s generally those guys.
idk i get recommended them only after i actually watch them. ive never got recommended markiplier until i started watching hids videos
On inv.nadeko.net what you listed is almost exactly what the front page looks like.
If you’re getting the recommendations on the front page, it’s likely the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon. When you watch a video, the side bar recommendations are based on the video you’re currently watching though. There are instances like invidious.nerdvpn.de that disable the homepage if you’d prefer.
Hm I don’t understand how they are tracking you in this case. I’m gonna ask a question that may seem stupid, but since you didn’t mention it, you aren’t logged into google/youtube are you?
no never (i logged in ONCE on linux mint without a vpn on librewolf and ive changed my os to tails but i dont know if logging in with no vpn makes you have a magical undefeatable virus that you cant detect or remove)
(i think i would like qubes better if it was easier to learn tails isnt for me since the police arent after me, i dont live in a dangerous area, and my parents are nice. i dont need psychical protection as much as remote protection)
(cool username btw)
Think beyond the OS/browser. Machines on your local network that ping or access Google could be used to create a identifiable signature. Then they know the whole subnet “fingerprint”. New machine, new OS, new browser, same local network, same suggestions.
Yeah but OP says they’re on VPN so this threat is eliminated
The code for the sites run on a client machine within the network regardless of VPN. Fingerprinting happens on the client machine no matter what, and most public VPN services allow local routing as far as I know.
If you disable local routing then it shouldn’t be an issue. You could test this by pinging local machines
Yeah you’re right. That’s what I get for skimming.
honesty is cool 👍
I browse YouTube on brave browser with VPN and not logged in. The YT front page is blank until I start watching videos, then I get recommendations based on what I’ve watched during that session.
idk i try using youtube to check if google can track me, i click on a generic popular brainrot video then my recommendations are niche and personalized. with inviduos google doesnt try to hide it.
(67!!!)
Browser Fingerprinting. You must configure your browser to lie about what it is and change the lie repeatedly. Simplest way is plugin to change your browsers User-Agent. This will be a big deal on mobile because mobile browsers will actually report the device model in the UA. Be prepared to see lots of captchas if you do this though.
How is YouTube getting that fingerprint through Invidious, though?
Its possible that is YouTube isn’t building a profile of the user but a profile of that specific invidious instance which is all of its users collectively. Its also possible that invidious is leaking some browser info like User-Agent to YouTube. That way switching IP doesn’t matter as long as its the same invidious instance.
Switching invidious instances should clear that up. If not then you’ve got a serious problem with invidious.
But you don’t want it to randomize the fingerprint with every webpage change, that itself becomes an identifiable signal.
You just change it when you want to drop any profile you developed. ie on browser start. The problem with changing it every page is sites will assume you’re a bot and either block you or serve you a captcha on every page.
ive tried the defualt in the real tor browser with safest settings. also tried an extension called chalmeon ( i cant spel) no differnce in the creepy tracking not even a budge
Are you always using the same invidious instance? Does it track across different invidious instances?
no i use nadeko and nerdvpn. i dont want anything (if perfection was possible) tracking across different sessions and even devices
So its not tracking you across instances? Then its probably tracking the invidious instance itself and not you in particular unless invidious leaks some amount of data about your browser which is possible.
If you don’t want YouTube to be able to develop a temporary profile from a single invidious session then I think you’re out of luck. Either make a new session per-video or give up. Invidious needs to pass YouTube’s bot management somehow and once it does YouTube will give it a trackable session token.
i dont mind temporary profiles. it has a permenate profile that i cant get away from ( i want google (and other services) to think im a different person when i change my idenity in tor which is what i thought would happen
Maybe you can check https://privacyterminal.com/ and https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ to see what may be being used to track you.
Firefox anti-fingerprinting doesn’t seem effective.
ive tried the 2nd one it says my fingerprint is generic so it should be fine and i shouldnt be linked to all my other fingerprints and sessions (i am) but i havent tried the first one
thanks for the recommendation
deleted by creator
i dont have andriod and i want google not to track me on any website. i use invidious to check if it is tracking me so invidious isnt the full problem. thanks for the comment though )
Ah, I see, ok. You’re asking the big question–how to be completely invisible to Google, not just how to access YouTube privately.
not completely just at least a little im not seeing even a little privacy and i have no conivence bc tor takes forever
I asked if you were actually clearing your cache in the other thread.
In this one I’ll try something different: have you considered logging in?
You are, based on two threads full of replies from you, incapable of avoiding “google” “tracking”.
It could be that you’re running android, that your google access point is sending telemetry or that you simply don’t have enough understanding of how the web works to effectively avoid being tracked no matter what operating system or software package is in use. That last part isn’t meant as an insult, web browsers are basically their own os and extremely complex.
Have you considered using a sandbox setup like Firefox’s container tabs and logging into google on a particular container?
That avoids the need for you to avoid tracking by saying to google “I’m me!” While also presenting them an empty browser cache and cookie sandbox to play in.
tried sandboxing containers and even vms (using qubes) and i dont use android (no offense taken btw)
(i have mulitple threads to get more answers no offense to the people commenting but ive already tried most of the things they suggested)
I’m not sure you’re picking up what I’m putting down.
You cannot do what you’re trying to do. I don’t know why. Other people can. I can. You can’t. There could be a lot of reasons for that and you’re failing to troubleshoot the problem. None of that is an indictment of you.
Try to do something else: open a container tab (I am a firefox user, so I use Firefox’s container tabs), log into google and watch your videos. Open up a different container tab (again, I am a Firefox user so I have to make a different container to use) and see if the recommendations follow you there.
This is just my thought, but since you’re still using youtube under the hood, Google still can link you to thr other data thats already been tracked before in their database, like how Google can still know it you even after you factory reset on stock ROM android
idk i see criminals use things privately so easily and not be tracked and im not a criminal but i want that too (i am live in usa so if the laws get any worse i might be a criminal)
( im using the word criminal as someone who has broken the law not someone who is morally wrong)
Nah, there’s no way you can do “leave no traces behind” like in real life, not even the greatest cyber criminal can, whatever you do, you still leaving traces, the reason why they so hard to track is because the “traces” they left is separated and have no link to anyone, nor anything, and that’s i think it call anonymity, which is really hard to achieve, at least in the big 2026
dont want perfection just want it to be difficult for trackers. they have a lot and i dont like it.
the kind of privacy i want is when i clear my cookies or change my ip etc, the website should think im a different person not know its me even if i change the device im using
example of what im not looking for
user redacted looked at topic redacted and topic redacted 2 at redacted time and has fingerprint redacted (fingerprint blocking)
example of what i AM looking for
user A looked at topic A at time A and has fingerprint A. then i change my idenity. user B looked at topic B and time B and has fingerprint B (spoofing that actually works)
I’m not as good as you so i can’t give you better solutions, but, just so you know, you’re still more private than a lot of people, me included, you dont have to feel bad, you did a lot of progress there
thanks for the reassurance ik im more private than your average joe but it is really sad when i get a thing that promises ill be safer from google but i go back to google and they still know its me. have a good night/day friend )
Can’t say I’m knowledgeable, so I’m throwing some words i heard around. Did you change the DNS for your ISP each time you made a new connection?
Your DNS could help identify you, but only if someone already has a handful of other data points. DNS fingerprinting is only really helpful if someone has DNS leaks with their VPN.
ps im not asking a question specfically about how to stop google from tracking me in invidious only, i use invidious to check if google can still track me (they can :(
This might be a silly question since you say you’re using vpns, whonix, and quad9 but are you signed in to google? Every time my computer reboots, youtube on my browser (librewolf) shows no recommendations
Edit: seems like you aren’t signed in. Maybe try firefox.
is tor browser worse in privacy than firefox? (genuine question)
The Tor browser is based on Firefox. The Tor browser has a lot of fingerprinting protections that aren’t included in regular Firefox, so if you like the Tor browser, there’s not much of a reason to use regular Firefox.
On the flip side, unless you’re browsing Tor, there isn’t really a reason to use the Tor browser. You can achieve better fingerprinting protections by using more popular privacy browsers.
could u spoof (give fake data) what browser you use?
Actually there is an extension to give fake data to google
Not really. You can lie in your request header and say you’re running chrome instead of Firefox (or vice versa) but there are other ways to identify the browser type, so it’d just make you stand out.
With browsers like Tor, identification can get as good as “This user is using the Tor browser”, but most services will just ID the browser engine (Gecko (Firefox), Chromium (Chrome), or WebKit (Safari)).
I’m not sure you can completely stop it when using their services.
Use: https://github.com/uazo/cromite
My guess is YouTube is fingerprinting your browser, and no browser does antifingerprinting specifically as obsessively as Cromite.
Just read its feature list. Its quite draconian, heh: https://github.com/uazo/cromite/blob/master/docs/FEATURES.md
no clue what your saying (besides browser fingerprinting) but thanks for the suggestion ill check it out
You said somewhere else that you don’t use android. Cromite is exclusive to android due to how iOS restricts browsers.
iOS forces all apps to use WebKit as a browser engine (though that might change soon in Europe), so you don’t really get much better than Safari / Brave on iOS.
is it on pc and or mac?
According to the repo, it’s available on Linux and Windows.
I mean Google can identify you with stuff like your resolution, cpu and gpu, measured execution speed, extensions, APIs, software versions. Browsers expose all that.
Check this site out. Its a great explainer: https://amiunique.org/
Now, if you run amiunique in Cromite, the results are interesting.
It may identify some stuff, but if you actually look at the readouts, you can see Cromite is spoofing data. It intenionally lies about your hardware and configurations to throw off fingerprinting, amongst other things.
This means it can actually mess up some sites that rely on the data: thats what I mean by “draconian.” Tons of features are disabled or stripped out. Cromite is a very extreme browser to daily drive, because its purpose built to defeat fingerprinting at any cost.
dumb question: can you get firefox extentsions on it?
Nope.
I think many Chrome extensions don’t work either, because of disabled APIs.
FYI extensions are another thing that can be used to fingerprint you. There’s a discussion on this somewhere on the Cromite GitHub, hence they don’t recommend extensions.
aw man thanks for the recommendation though.
one more question, does it have ad blocking?
Yep, built in, with customizable lists.
thanks 👍
