Google sanitary

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Re: Google sanitary

by barbaz » Mon Jun 03, 2019 4:48 pm

Without having the original rationale for adding this to NoScript Classic, I wouldn't be so sure this is only about privacy.

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=21422 suggested adding a similar sort of cleaning to get rid of XSS warnings. Was there a similar case for adding Google link redirect cleaning?

Re: Google sanitary

by skriptimaahinen » Mon Jun 03, 2019 3:59 pm

That is a nice feature. Personally sanitize the links myself too. Don't really like Google knowing where I browse, the overhead or the fact that it's hard to see where the link is actually taking you.

That said, I don't think this feature belongs to NoScript. Two reasons:

1. As has been stated here before - NoScript is security, not privacy suite.

2. NoScript should not modify content except where it is necessary e.g. convert noscript-tags to spans to emulate proper scripts-disabled-functionality.

(Though even the latter can cause problems as I recently noticed when I was making a content changing userscript. There was no guarantee whether the tag was noscript or span at the script run time, so I had to handle both cases. Luckily that was possible.)

And as pointed in the above comments, this functionality is already available as separate extension or (Greasemonkey, Violentmonkey) userscript.

Re: Google sanitary

by therube » Mon Jun 03, 2019 11:34 am

Bump (for NoScript to [again] have this ability).


So I right-click, Copy Link Location, & this is what I got.

Code: Select all

http://www.google.com/url?url=http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_mode&rct=j&frm=1&q=&esrc=s&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwigzpPGms3iAhWHT98KHRq7C54QFggUMAA&usg=AOvVaw39RQSduKQx8N1SRFKEPipS

Re: Google sanitary

by geek99 » Wed Jan 03, 2018 7:22 pm

Maybe you can explain why you don't want to enable JS for Google?
I guess I am just a bit paranoid when it comes to security/privacy.

I keep the number of permanently trusted sites to a minimum. Only the sites I use (and trust) multiple times per day get permanently trusted. I have UNCHECKED the option to "Temp set top-level sites to trusted".

For other sites that I need to access, I temporarily trust them. Yes, I know that requires more work (to temp trust each time I use a site).

Given google's reputation (tracking/privacy/etc), I do not want to permanently trust that site. If/when I need to use any of google's services (e.g., google maps), I temporarily trust the corresponding google site.

Using google's search engine (in Firefox) does not require that I first trust the site, so no extra work (i.e., no temp trusts needed) to do a google search.

However, after doing a google search, I saw that all search result links were not sanitized (because I have UNCHECKED the option to "Temp set top-level sites to trusted", and I have not manually trusted the google site). I could have installed the Google Search Link Fix extension (to sanitize the link), but that extension required me to first trust the google site ... and I really did not want to permanently trust google (for security/privacy reasons), and I did not want to temporarily trust google (because of the frequency in which I do google searches, the extra work would have been too much).

That is why I was happy to find the "Don't Track Me Google" extension ... which sanitizes the google search results links without my first having to trust the google site.

Re: Google sanitary

by kukla » Wed Jan 03, 2018 4:12 pm

geek99 wrote:
Update: installed Google Search Link Fix + allowed Google
I want to sanitize my google search results links, but I do not want to trust google (if possible).

I found this Firefox extension ....
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... e-google1/

... that will sanitize the links and does not require that I first trust google.com
In order to use maps, which I find very useful, I need to allow/enable JS for Google*. As far as I can tell, they aren't getting anything from me. I have all Google cookies blocked (so no infamous Google PREF ID cookie, no tracking cookies), no gmail, plus search link tracking redirects sanitized either in 52esr or, now with searchlinkfix, in 57+. Maybe you can explain why you don't want to enable JS for Google?

* Of course, I suppose I could always just temporarily allow for maps.

Re: Google sanitary

by geek99 » Wed Jan 03, 2018 12:31 am

Update: installed Google Search Link Fix + allowed Google
I want to sanitize my google search results links, but I do not want to trust google (if possible).

I found this Firefox extension ....
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... e-google1/

... that will sanitize the links and does not require that I first trust google.com

Re: Google sanitary

by kukla » Tue Jan 02, 2018 10:24 pm

Update: installed Google Search Link Fix + allowed Google (didn't realize that it wasn't allowed, and that was why those links always appeared, even before mousedown) and now I'm seeing the desired behavior: nothing on mousedown.

Re: Google sanitary

by kukla » Mon Jan 01, 2018 9:04 pm

Actually, not sure why I said this was happening only at mousedown, maybe just from habit with earlier Firefox. But I'm seeing that the google tracking link is always present in the status bar in FF 57. Any number of addons claim to be able to sanitize the redirect, but perhaps only after clicking fully, not sure. Not willing to take that on faith. Until I know better, will be using duckduckgo.

Re: Google sanitary

by barbaz » Fri Dec 29, 2017 9:28 pm

Threads merged.

NoScript 10.1.x no longer sanitizes Google link redirects...

by kukla » Fri Dec 29, 2017 8:57 pm

10.1.x no longer sanitizes Google search link redirects on mousedown. E.g., see long string produced in status bar on selecting an item in Google search. Disappears immediately after mousedown. Wonder if Giorgio can restore this very useful feature for stopping one form of Google snooping.

Image

Also, still mostly on 52esr, but have been playing around with the 57+ for use when 52esr is EOL. Realize that this has probably been discussed and solved already, but not finding any way to temporarily allow just a single script, including script for top site, which was easily accomplished in pre-WE NoScript. A link perhaps to the solution for this. Thanks.

Re: Google sanitary

by therube » Tue Dec 19, 2017 6:40 pm

What you describe is what did happen with earlier NoScript.

Current does not "clean" the links, & that really sucks because it causes a (relatively) huge delay in opening the wanted site.

Re: Google sanitary

by geek99 » Tue Dec 19, 2017 6:35 pm

I don't think this is an issue with Surrogates, and I don't think this is a problem with NoScript.

I think this is a problem with the google search engine.

Lurion ... try to reproduce this issue using some other search engine besides google (I tried Yahoo). I think you will see that with other search engines, the actual link you get will be the one shown in the search results.

barbaz ... here are steps to reproduce the problem that Lurion described ...

1. Use the google search engine and search for something (for example, search for: twitch
2. You will see a google search results page. The top item should show the link "Twitch". Under the link "Twitch", you will see this: "https://www.twitch.tv".
3. Hover your mouse over the link "Twitch" and the Firefox status bar (bottom of the Firefox window)
will show this (the actual URL): "https://www.twitch.tv"
4. Now, hold down the CTRL key and click the link that says "Twitch".
(holding down the CTRL key causes the link to the opened in a new tab)
5. You will go to the Twitch page (in a new tab).
6. Use your mouse to click the previous tab (with the google search results).
7. Hover your mouse over the link "Twitch" and the Firefox status bar (bottom of the Firefox window)
will show this (actual URL): "https://www.google.xx/url?q=https://www.twitch.tv/&s ..."

It appears that opening a google search result in a new tab causes the link's actual URL to be changed in the original google search results page!!

This did not happen when I opened the google search result using the same tab (i.e., when I did not hold down the CTRL key when clicking the link) ... and this did not happen when I used a different search engine besides google. This did happen when I used the Chrome browser with the google search engine, and I opened the link in a new tab.

So I don't think this problem has anything to do with NoScript. I think that this is a problem with the google search engine when a link is opened in a new tab.

Your thoughts?

Re: Google sanitary

by barbaz » Tue Dec 19, 2017 2:48 pm

You can't yet. Surrogates have not yet been ported to NoScript 10.

Google sanitary

by Lurion » Tue Dec 19, 2017 12:55 pm

Hey, I swear that the old Noscript revamped the Google search results in a way that the link clicks were not tracked.
For example, if I search for Twitch, I will get a hit to their website as the first result. But I am not getting the actual link that is advertised under the result.
Instead the link will be some redirect to the actual requested page, and it is probably used by google to track link clicks.

Example: Search for Twitch and see where the link points in the first hit.
Result: https://www.google.xx/url?q=https://www ... AbmtdZ4-lP
Expected: https://www.twitch.tv

This goes for all hits in the search results. Is there a way I can get this functionality back with Noscript 10?

Thanks.

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