3 ms·

Image searches though.

wlesieutre 11y ago
I just linked an image search in an HN comment yesterday. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10459123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10459123 Deleted all the nonessential arguments by hand out of suspicion of something like this. Nice to know I'm not being too paranoid.
- soylentcola 11y ago
  Not quite search-related but in my most common usage, I run across similar practices with copy/pasting URLs in general. Some friends and I have a running multi-person Hangout that we use as a sort of simplified chat room. It's obviously got none of the control of something like IRC but it's easier and more convenient for most of them. About half of us already have Hangouts on our phones by default (Android) and the iOS folks can install it and alternately, many of us keep Gmail open in a browser tab at work anyway. Getting to the point, we use the chat for just general BS throughout the day and we post a lot of links. I have a habit of seeing what I can strip off an article or other link before it doesn't resolve. But some chat participants are primarily phone users and don't often sit down with a laptop or desktop. Almost all of the links they post are these elongated strings that take up 4+ lines in the chat box and contain all sorts of Facebook references and other bits and pieces of the "path" they took to get to the actual article. I've mentioned it before but usually just get groans about how I'm paranoid/anal retentive. It's probably no big deal but on principle I don't like clicking on anything that essentially lets Facebook or some other network track the spread of links even when I'm not on Facebook. If I'm actively on that site or something similar, sure, they can go right ahead and track what I do but when I'm just sitting at work and want to click some news story a friend forwarded, I don't need all the referral links and tracking. The problem is (as has been mentioned above) a lot of people just don't think about what's in a URL and sorta just look at it like "that mess of gibberish text that points to the article or funny picture". The problem has only gotten worse as more people are primarily phone/mobile app users.

I just linked an image search in an HN comment yesterday. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10459123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10459123 Deleted all the nonessential arguments by hand out of suspicion of something like this. Nice to know I'm not being too paranoid.

soylentcola 11y ago
Not quite search-related but in my most common usage, I run across similar practices with copy/pasting URLs in general. Some friends and I have a running multi-person Hangout that we use as a sort of simplified chat room. It's obviously got none of the control of something like IRC but it's easier and more convenient for most of them. About half of us already have Hangouts on our phones by default (Android) and the iOS folks can install it and alternately, many of us keep Gmail open in a browser tab at work anyway. Getting to the point, we use the chat for just general BS throughout the day and we post a lot of links. I have a habit of seeing what I can strip off an article or other link before it doesn't resolve. But some chat participants are primarily phone users and don't often sit down with a laptop or desktop. Almost all of the links they post are these elongated strings that take up 4+ lines in the chat box and contain all sorts of Facebook references and other bits and pieces of the "path" they took to get to the actual article. I've mentioned it before but usually just get groans about how I'm paranoid/anal retentive. It's probably no big deal but on principle I don't like clicking on anything that essentially lets Facebook or some other network track the spread of links even when I'm not on Facebook. If I'm actively on that site or something similar, sure, they can go right ahead and track what I do but when I'm just sitting at work and want to click some news story a friend forwarded, I don't need all the referral links and tracking. The problem is (as has been mentioned above) a lot of people just don't think about what's in a URL and sorta just look at it like "that mess of gibberish text that points to the article or funny picture". The problem has only gotten worse as more people are primarily phone/mobile app users.