Get unique, static id from a device via web request

Question

I have an MVC application that I would like to add some custom stats to. For some of the stats, it would be nice to have a unique identifier for a device.

For examp

Answer 1

The short answer is their isn't any (and with good reason given privacy concerns). The more helpful answer would be that this is something you would normally do using cookies. You set a cookie and then check that to identify the specific browser making the request.

Of course, this is by no means fool-proof as users can reject cookies, delete them and they can use many different browsers (each of which will have a different cookie). If you are being devious (and I wouldn't recommend this) you could use a Local Shared Object (Flash Cookie) as this is less likely to be removed. At the end of the day, though, if someone doesn't want to be tracked you can't force them to be.

Generally, though, if you want analytics and tracking then consider using a 3rd party solution like Google Analytics. This will give you very detailed data (albeit still relying on cookies and javascript) about your visitors and their browsing habits.