InformAction Forums

New surrogate against Google's scriptless tracking of search results navigation

In the 2.3.1 update. Can someone please explain what this means? Is this referring to the hard coded tracking links on a page of Google search results that appear with JS disabled/Google not allowed? The idea is the surrogate would direct them nowhere, instead of back to Google?

Does anyone know if RDR (RedirectRemover) is able to zap the JavaScript generated tracking on a page of Google search results, i.e. those with Google allowed ?

Giorgio maybe?

kukla wrote:Is this referring to the hard coded tracking links on a page of Google search results that appear with JS disabled/Google not allowed?

Yes

kukla wrote:The idea is the surrogate would direct them nowhere, instead of back to Google?

The idea is they should get removed (replaced with the direct link) before they get clicked (even though not at page load time).

kukla wrote: Does anyone know if RDR (RedirectRemover) is able to zap the JavaScript generated tracking on a page of Google search results, i.e. those with Google allowed ?

No idea, why don't you try and report back here?

The Redirect Cleaner extension can make the search result links work, even from the new 302-moved URLs.
RedirectRemover is outdated.

Mc wrote:The Redirect Cleaner extension can make the search result links work, even from the new 302-moved URLs.
RedirectRemover is outdated.

Translation needed please. Does this mean it will stop the JavaScript generated tracking from Google? (I'm finding that RDR has been stopping the hard coded non JS tracking. I'm glad Giorgio has added this feature to NoScript.)

http://forums.informaction.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7152 wrote: Bookmarklet: remove redirects.
You'd have to click the bookmarklet on the "base" page (like your URL above) before clicking any of the links.

The bookmarklet would remove the redirects, cleaning up the URLs.
Stopping the Google tracking, that's an entirely different issue & wouldn't have a clue.


Link: Redirect Cleaner.


(I happened to have google.com allowed a moment ago, went to a search & thought, "man that's an ugly looking page". Sucks that AMO displays pictures as it does, much less <kind of> requiring mozilla.net.)

Bringing back this thread because I've just discovered that NoScript is scrubbing not only the non-JavaScript Google tracking links (i.e. those with Google not allowed), but the JavaScript enabled links generated at mousedown, i.e. those with Google allowed as well. I've demonstrated this with NS disabled and right-clicking and copying the link. With NS disabled, a copied link location in a search results page is showing the long tracking string. With NS enabled and Google allowed, the copied link location is scrubbed.

Is it possible the scriptless tracking surrogate feature is doing this, or, maybe, some other mechanism in NoScript? Perhaps I should mention that I'm running OS X 10.6.8, since the platform may have something to do with this.

I'm puzzled, since Giorgio had replied that this was meant only to scrub the non-JS links.

I'm not complaining, I'm pleasantly surprised. But would like to understand what about NS is responsible for this.

Perhaps someone can replicate this behavior?

kukla wrote:Is it possible the scriptless tracking surrogate feature is doing this?

The surrogate preventing the omousedown handler from adding the tracking code predates the one for scriptless pages, because the onmousedown mechanism is way older and already handled by NoScript.

When Google started hardcoding the tracking redirect in scriptless pages I added a second surrogate for them (hence my reply stating it was meant for non-JS links only), but later I consolidate the two into one single surrogate which handles both the cases.

That's great Giorgio. Thanks. Never knew that. (I wouldn't have been asking about Redirect Remover if I did!) NoScript is the best!

Or one could just use a search engine that respects ones' privacy in the first place.

Check out https://duckduckgo.com/html

Search plugins are available at Firefox Add-ons.

Tom T. wrote:Or one could just use a search engine that respects ones' privacy in the first place.

Check out https://duckduckgo.com/html

Search plugins are available at Firefox Add-ons.

I wish it were that simple. I've been using Startpage and DuckDuckgo. They sometimes complement each other, but it's a PITA to have to duplicate my searches using both. Duck doesn't get its results from Google, while Startpage allegedly does, but Google doesn't always feed it the same results. Too bad Google has turned into such a privacy headache.

kukla wrote: .... it's a PITA to have to duplicate my searches using both. Duck doesn't get its results from Google, while Startpage allegedly does, but Google doesn't always feed it the same results....

Check Duck's Settings page. By default, it chose my region (USA), filtered suspected adult sites (your choice), and some other things that may result in fewer search results.

IIUC, they search via Yahoo, Bing, and some of their own capability, and perhaps other sources (Wikipedia? IIRC).

See if making the search settings less restrictive doesn't help. I've been using Duck alone, and it's always been sufficient so far.

Thanks Tom, unfortunately, the thing is unless you do a Google search, you won't know what you're missing. For example, the search, "why is leopard so expensive site:discussions.apple.com." With Duck, the only hit you get is for a thread from 2010. With Google, you get that one plus a quite recent one from 3/1/2012, which is the one I knew existed and was trying to find again. Startpage had one hit and that was completely out of left field.

I wish it were otherwise, but the privacy invading monstrosity that Google is is just better.

I see that one of my previous alternates, Exalead, was acquired by Dassault Systems in 2010, and doesn't seem so consumer-friendly anymore.

I've been able to find what I needed with Duck, but I suppose the 800-lb. gorilla grabs the most bananas.
Perhaps if masses of users started using alternates like Duck, these others could enhance their own crawlers, indexers, etc.

Or Scroogle could restart, with a rotating proxy system or something?
Classified ad: Web searchers seek rich person with desire to support Web privacy.

Sorry to hear that report. But you can still try the privacy-friendly one(s) first, and then, if and only if, use G**g** if not enough results.
Crossing fingers and hoping...

Cheers.

Simple solution for when I want to use the 800 lb gorilla: block Google cookies; as always, keep using NS. Result: no annoying instant or previews and no tracking, either from JS redirects or cookies. Except they do seem to know my IP. I guess I can live with that. I've taken it one step further and added Google HTTPS to search engines.