Fingerprinting is much harder in reality than Panopticlick makes you believe.
For example, if you update your browser or add a new plugin, you can look like a new person so it makes it harder to find a match. A cookie would not change through that event.
Enough people have the same fingerprint that it limits its effectiveness. Maybe you can only reliably identify 40% of your user base that way.
It is like using your IP address as an identifier. For some people it can be 100% accurate, but others switch networks or share an IP with multiple other people which limits its usefulness.
What ends up happening is that companies will correlate IP address with other fingerprint information to get a probabilistic match but that is complex and still has flaws.
For example, if you update your browser or add a new plugin, you can look like a new person so it makes it harder to find a match. A cookie would not change through that event.
Enough people have the same fingerprint that it limits its effectiveness. Maybe you can only reliably identify 40% of your user base that way.
It is like using your IP address as an identifier. For some people it can be 100% accurate, but others switch networks or share an IP with multiple other people which limits its usefulness.
What ends up happening is that companies will correlate IP address with other fingerprint information to get a probabilistic match but that is complex and still has flaws.