InformAction Forums

I'm using FF 3.6.17 (no intention to switch to FF4). Thanks to G.M. and noscript, the no-track DNT header is sent along with (most) page requests BUT - here's the point - sometimes is absent and I couldn't determine when/why it is missing.

An example is with Steve "GRC" Gibson's browser header view pages aka Shieldsup!
<https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2>
(also available as non secure. Both secure and unsecure accesses report NO DNT: header received !)

It appears the grc tests use POST rather than GET. As a hypothesis I raise in the dark, would this cause DNT not being sent ?

As a bonus and while I'm at the mike, can someone plz explain what the "noscript.doNotTrack.forced" preference does in addition to "noscript.doNotTrack.enabled", and why this while DNT settings could not be made visible in the noscript user interface ?

Thank you again

--
Czerno

Sorry at the end of my above question, should read thus:
....and why thesee DNT settings could not be made visible in the noscript user interface ?

Incidentally, the "captcha" challenges (Google's?), as for an automaton I don't know how efficent they are, but are way too difficult for a human to get right!!! It verges on ridiculous, add to that the mandatory cut and paste which is probably /not/ difficult for said automaton but adds to the annoyment. Is it possible for you (webmasters) to tune the difficulty level of the visual challenge ?

--
Czerno

Czerno wrote:....and why thesee DNT settings could not be made visible in the noscript user interface ?

Good question, but then many new things introduced didn't get their own UI. And don't quote me on that, but I believe it NoScript's implementation gets deactivated in Firefox 4 since it's native there.

Incidentally, the "captcha" challenges (Google's?), as for an automaton I don't know how efficent they are, but are way too difficult for a human to get right!!!

You need only to get one right, normally it's the one that is easier to read. Alternatively, you could just register here.

dhouwn wrote:... don't quote me on that, but I believe it NoScript's implementation gets deactivated in Firefox 4 since it's native there.

Ok. So please can you or somebody else answer my concern about DNT: 1 not being sent along with certain requests, whether a bug or feature ? Oh, and I am aware of the exception for localhost, I read (some of) the forum before asking...

--
Czerno

DNT is not sent with SAME-ORIGIN POST requests on purpose, because it has been seen to cause problems with some servers while being practically useless, since most if not all the tracker/advertisers use GET and anyway, in order to make a POST, request you need to have reached the POSTing page via GET -- so the POSTing page (on the same domain) MUST have seen the header and comply.

Giorgio Maone wrote:DNT is not sent with SAME-ORIGIN POST requests on purpose.....

Aha! So this was carefully thought out (as usual) - only the explanations were lacking. Or have you readied a page with technical details somewhere ?

Not that Do-not-track is any real help of course (at this stage, anyway)... it does feel warmer surfing with it than without, in a psychological way - thank You for relieving that uneasy feeling about what appeared as erratic or incoherent behavior, yet wasn't...

--
Czerno