Multiple internet identities include anything from multiple accounts on a single website to different computers with a different connection. The purposes why people need them are various.
Within the context of our website and Multilogin, we view identity as a set of computer, browser and connection parameters that server can read off your client. We call those parameters fingerprints. Here we write in detail about modern fingerprinting techniques in this article.
Understanding browser profiles
In Multilogin, creating a unique online identity begins with creating a browser profile. Browser profile is a set of settings applied to your browser on its launch that overwrites the default browser parameters.
Some browsers like Firefox or Opera already allow having multiple profiles. They share some same settings across every profile. Among these settings is a proxy server, which is crucial for masking your actual IP address. In Multilogin, however, you have an option to apply a different proxy server to each browser profile.
Understanding browser sessions
Besides storing information about browser parameters, the browser profile is necessary for storing your session. As defined by Mozilla, “a browser session is a continuous period of user activity in the browser, where successive events are separated by no more than 30 minutes”.
This definition is not set in stone and others might define session differently.
From a programming viewpoint, a session lasts as long as its identifier is stored on a client computer.
To understand better how Multilogin handles sessions, let’s play a pretend game. You have a notebook with a fresh browser, which you haven’t used for browsing before. You open any website like Facebook and log into it. After some period of activity, you stand up, go to the bathroom, brush teeth and go to sleep. While you do this, your notebook goes into “sleep mode” as well. In the morning you come back, open your notebook and you are still logged in.
How many sessions do you think your computer has registered? Two, right? But how many sessions do you think Facebook has registered? Only one long continuous session. It is very demonstrative of what exactly happens when websites communicate with browsers launched in Multilogin.
Creating and managing multiple online identities
To create a unique online identity, first, you need to create a browser profile. At this point, you should decide what level of anonymity you require. The first barrier of defense is a proxy server, which is intended to mask your real IP. However, it doesn’t save you from sophisticated fingerprinting tools.
In Multilogin, we have introduced a unique technology we named a Fingerprint builder. It has several stages starting from collecting real-device fingerprints then filtering, grouping and indexing them. You can learn about the process in our short video here.
All the actions are intended to provide Multilogin users with good quality fingerprints that are statistically accurate.
Before launching a browser profile, you can alter, enable or disable many settings. Set up timezone, geolocation, and WebRTC. Then you can move on to the advanced options where you can alter hardware fingerprints (Canvas, WebGL, AudioContext), manage fonts, extensions, and browser plugins among others.
One more option includes proxy tunneling plugin. Don’t turn it on unless you know what you are doing! This option is needed when you authenticate on a proxy server by IP, which is not on the allowed list. It’s handy when you need to quickly share access to your session to someone else or just access it from multiple computers. However, turning this on will make your data to go through our servers. No worries, it will still be encrypted and we won’t see anything, just doing so will slow your connection down. You can read more about proxy tunneling in this article.
After having created a browser profile, go on and launch a browser with it. If the proxy server passes all required checks, you will see the welcome screen with information about your location and user agent parameter. Go to any website and log in. After you finished working with it, just close browser using a special Multilogin button. This will save your session and allow restoring it when you launch the same profile again.
Connecting to different websites using the same identity
Now when you know how to create browser profiles and connect to websites, let’s push the envelope even further. While being logged into a single website is pretty convenient. Yet, it can cost a penny considering proxy expenses and a limited number of allowed profiles in Multilogin.
Let’s say you are an internet marketing expert, who created a persona. We’ll call him Charles. Charles might have accounts on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The easiest way to manage Charles’ identity is to log into every website where Charles has an account from a single session. Every time you launch Charles’ browser profile, this session will be restored with all Charles’ account being already opened.
