Enables tracking of users via a favicon tricks in your Laravel project. Even when they are incognito. For educational purposes only.
- run
composer require julesgraus/favicontrackerin the root of your laravel 6+ project. - Publish the config file using
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=fitin the root of your laravel project.
When you've installed the package you will have some extra routes. The /fit route can be used to test the package. It will display a page on which you can start the read and write processes. You can also head to /fit/read and /fit/write yourself to programmatically start these processes. In the Verified tracking procedures section you will see what you need to do to track users. At the moment it does not seem to be possible to start a read action first, and then reliable write a tracking id into the favicons cache without closing the browser. Also a delay must be used to iterate over the tracking routes as it takes some time for the browser to start requesting a favicon.
These procedures where followed in order to manually verify the tracking technique per browser:
- Browser was opened.
- Read procedure was started. Resulted in tracking id of 0.
- Browser was closed completely and started.
- Write procedure was started. Resulted in storing a plus zero id.
- Browser was closed completely and started.
- Read procedure was started. Resulted in retrieving the plus zero id.
- Browser was opened
- Read procedure was started. Resulted in tracking id of 0.
- Write procedure was started. Resulted in storing a plus zero id.
- Read procedure was started. Resulted in retrieving the plus zero id.
- Browser was closed completely and started.
- Read procedure was started. Resulted in retrieving the plus zero id.
- Write procedure was started. Resulted in storing a plus zero id.
- No tracking procedure seems to work.
- Browser was opened.
- Read procedure was started. Resulted in tracking id of 0.
- Browser was closed completely and started.
- Write procedure was started. Resulted in storing a plus zero id.
- Browser was closed completely and started.
- Read procedure was started. Resulted in retrieving the plus zero id.
These procedures where followed in order to manually verify the tracking technique per browser:
- Browser was opened.
- Read procedure was started. Resulted in tracking id of 0.
- Browser was closed completely and started.
- Write procedure was started. Resulted in storing a plus zero id.
- Browser was closed completely and started.
- Read procedure was started. Resulted in retrieving the plus zero id.
- Browser was opened
- Read procedure was started. Resulted in tracking id of 0.
- Write procedure was started. Resulted in storing a plus zero id.
- Read procedure was started. Resulted in retrieving the plus zero id.
- Browser was closed completely and started.
- Read procedure was started. Resulted in retrieving the plus zero id.
- Write procedure was started. Resulted in storing a plus zero id.
- No tracking procedure seems to work.
- Browser was opened.
- Read procedure was started. Resulted in tracking id of 0.
- Browser was closed completely and started.
- Write procedure was started. Resulted in storing a plus zero id.
- Browser was closed completely and started.
- Read procedure was started. Resulted in retrieving the plus zero id.
Make sure you close your browser completely first.
Delete ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Favicons
and ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Favicons-journal.
Delete C:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default.
Delete everything in ~/Library/Safari/Favicon Cache/
Does not always seem to work immediately (Safari 4.0.3)
Delete ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft Edge/Default/Favicons
and ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft Edge/Default/Favicons-journal.