--- title: AliExpress accused of fingerprinting shoppers with... description: A developer investigating why his Bluetooth headphones kept muting whenever he opened AliExpress traced the problem to obfuscated WebAudio-based fingerprinting... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/aliexpress-accused-of-fingerprinting-shoppers-with-silent-audio-trick-that-also-muted-a-dev-s-headph-no0mkxezc twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: AliExpress accused of fingerprinting shoppers with silent audio trick that also muted a dev's headphones | daily.dev og:description: A developer investigating why his Bluetooth headphones kept muting whenever he opened AliExpress traced the problem to obfuscated WebAudio-based fingerprinting... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/aliexpress-accused-of-fingerprinting-shoppers-with-silent-audio-trick-that-also-muted-a-dev-s-headph-no0mkxezc og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/no0mkXEzC.png og:image:alt: AliExpress accused of fingerprinting shoppers with silent audio trick that also muted a dev's headphones og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # AliExpress accused of fingerprinting shoppers with silent audio trick that also muted a dev's headphones **[The Register](https://daily.dev/sources/theregister)** · 5 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A developer investigating why his Bluetooth headphones kept muting whenever he opened AliExpress traced the problem to obfuscated WebAudio-based fingerprinting scripts on Alibaba's site. The scripts generate a silent sawtooth waveform and analyze how it's processed by the browser's audio stack, alongside collecting screen, device memory, WebGL, and mouse-event data, to build a device fingerprint. Firefox says its anti-fingerprinting protections (since v118) group users into indistinguishable buckets, neutralizing WebAudio fingerprinting for over 99% of users, though 48 users worldwide remain uniquely identifiable. Brave says it blocks the specific AliExpress scripts and injects randomized fingerprint data. Safari uses a different approach, injecting audio errors into buffers, while Chrome reportedly lacks robust fingerprinting defenses, leaving it vulnerable to dozens of known techniques. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Why do my Bluetooth headphones stop playing audio from my phone when I open an AliExpress page in Chrome or Firefox? AliExpress runs obfuscated scripts that build a WebAudio graph with a silent sawtooth oscillator and analyzer to fingerprint your browser and device. Because gain is set to zero, you hear nothing, but the browser still actively processes the live audio, which can keep a Bluetooth multipoint audio path locked to the PC and block your phone's audio from taking over until the tab is closed. _Developers debugging odd browser audio and tracking behavior can find deep-dive breakdowns like this on daily.dev._ ### Does Firefox protect against WebAudio-based browser fingerprinting? Yes, since version 118 released in September 2023, Firefox groups users into indistinguishable buckets so that WebAudio-based fingerprinting can't tell them apart. Over 99% of users fall into one of three main buckets or a group where the fingerprinting script fails entirely, though 48 users worldwide fall outside these groups and remain uniquely identifiable due to unusual hardware or system quirks. _Track how browsers evolve their privacy defenses over time by following security research on daily.dev._ ### Does Chrome protect against browser fingerprinting techniques? No, Chrome does not aggressively defend against fingerprinting, unlike Firefox, Brave, or Safari. Privacy consultant Alexander Hanff noted there are at least thirty distinct fingerprinting techniques that currently work in Chrome, deployed in production on millions of websites to track users without consent, in contrast to Firefox's bucketing approach, Brave's randomized fingerprint injection, and Safari's audio buffer error injection. _Compare browser privacy trade-offs before choosing a default browser for development, on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Google Chrome lacks browser fingerprinting defenses](https://daily.dev/posts/google-chrome-lacks-browser-fingerprinting-defenses-f5qvimp5z) · The Register · 3 upvotes · 0 comments - [Kevin Boone: The privacy nightmare of browser fingerprinting](https://daily.dev/posts/kevin-boone-the-privacy-nightmare-of-browser-fingerprinting-etnsunb8w) · Hacker News · 9 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#webdev](https://daily.dev/tags/webdev), [#privacy](https://daily.dev/tags/privacy), [#firefox](https://daily.dev/tags/firefox) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/aliexpress-accused-of-fingerprinting-shoppers-with-silent-audio-trick-that-also-muted-a-dev-s-headph-no0mkxezc) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"AliExpress accused of fingerprinting shoppers with silent audio trick that also muted a dev's headphones","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/aliexpress-accused-of-fingerprinting-shoppers-with-silent-audio-trick-that-also-muted-a-dev-s-headph-no0mkxezc","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/aliexpress-accused-of-fingerprinting-shoppers-with-silent-audio-trick-that-also-muted-a-dev-s-headph-no0mkxezc"},"datePublished":"2026-08-24T12:34:38.921Z","dateModified":"2026-08-28T07:26:17.552Z","description":"A developer investigating why his Bluetooth headphones kept muting whenever he opened AliExpress traced the problem to obfuscated WebAudio-based fingerprinting...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/e0a71d4b51c24f89b4779b5ec78a11e6?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/e0a71d4b51c24f89b4779b5ec78a11e6?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"The Register","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The Register","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/66aa2113fdad463992ffcbf0e8963fda","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/theregister"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/aliexpress-accused-of-fingerprinting-shoppers-with-silent-audio-trick-that-also-muted-a-dev-s-headph-no0mkxezc","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"webdev,privacy,firefox","timeRequired":"PT5M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Register","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/theregister"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"AliExpress accused of fingerprinting shoppers with silent audio trick that also muted a dev's headphones"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/aliexpress-accused-of-fingerprinting-shoppers-with-silent-audio-trick-that-also-muted-a-dev-s-headph-no0mkxezc#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Why do my Bluetooth headphones stop playing audio from my phone when I open an AliExpress page in Chrome or Firefox?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"AliExpress runs obfuscated scripts that build a WebAudio graph with a silent sawtooth oscillator and analyzer to fingerprint your browser and device. 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