4 ms·

They also do open most links in their own google.com wrapper. Time to break them up

Sharlin 7y ago
Which is extremely annoying when it’s a pdf or other document that’s set to immediately download; it’s rather tricky to get the actual URL if you want to share it as it won’t ever show up in the address bar.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  Pet peeve of mine, see comment above.
- zeitg3ist 7y ago
  You can usually right-click the file in the downloads panel of the browser and copy its url.
  - Sharlin 7y ago
    Thanks, somehow hadn't discovered that!
- einr 7y ago
  I use the extension "Don't track me Google" to circumvent this. Converts all links to the direct URL on Google search pages. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dont-track-me-google1/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dont-track-me...
- ryandrake 7y ago
  It's getting harder and harder in general to get the raw source document for everything. Look at image search. You search for an image, and the search results are [not the original] thumbnails. Then you click a thumbnail and it takes you to a larger scaled down [not the original] image. Then when you click that it takes you to some image sharing site slathered with ads and chrome all over the page and another scaled down [not the original] image. If you're lucky, you can use some incantation of right-click and/or View Page Source to get the actual high-resolution original image that you're looking for. Total madness! When I'm looking for an image, I expect my search engine to return me a URL with .png or .jpg at the end of it.
Frost1x 7y ago
They've done this for well over a decade, I remember the transition and there was little outrage. Before, all the results generated were direct links without any wrappers. Then Google decided they needed to know which of the links people were clicking so they injected a wrapper around every link so they'd get a request from every click. Sure, it can be used to increase accuracy of search results. It can also be used to taylor data and profiles around individual users at finer and finer granularity.
GuB-42 7y ago
I just tried it on my phone and for some reason, links are wrapped except when I select "desktop version". Depending on some conditions that aren't always you get the true link or you get the wrapped link. My guess is that they have an array of techniques for tracking your clicks (js trickery, "ping" attribute,...) and resort to wrapping only when the other ones are less likely to work.
rmsaksida 7y ago
I think the reason why they did that originally was so HTTP websites would get referrer information from Google search results (HTTPS). Referrer data is dropped when going from HTTPS to HTTP. When Google first started using HTTPS, most of the web was unencrypted, and they wouldn't be able to track the referrer in Google Analytics unless they added a redirector to search results.
stragies 7y ago
Does anybody here know, what the currently recommended Firefox Addon for removing these redirects is? The first few results from the searches all have recent "Doesn't work anymore"-ish comments.
- GraemeL 7y ago
  Nokinside linked a couple upthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21427367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21427367 The first one works for me.
jvolkman 7y ago
Is this still true? The html spec now supports a 'ping' attribute in addition to 'href' for pinging tracking URLs. I'm seeing that all results have the actual URL in 'href'. Example (Chrome): <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a&ved=2ahUKEwjmxMHk5MvlAhWVvp4KHS6lCqIQFjAAegQIABAB">
- nanaya 7y ago
  on my firefox, on click, it switches to the tracking url (there's an onmousedown event). It does use the ping attribute on chrome.

Which is extremely annoying when it’s a pdf or other document that’s set to immediately download; it’s rather tricky to get the actual URL if you want to share it as it won’t ever show up in the address bar.

jacquesm 7y ago
Pet peeve of mine, see comment above.
zeitg3ist 7y ago
You can usually right-click the file in the downloads panel of the browser and copy its url.
- Sharlin 7y ago
  Thanks, somehow hadn't discovered that!
einr 7y ago
I use the extension "Don't track me Google" to circumvent this. Converts all links to the direct URL on Google search pages. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dont-track-me-google1/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dont-track-me...
ryandrake 7y ago
It's getting harder and harder in general to get the raw source document for everything. Look at image search. You search for an image, and the search results are [not the original] thumbnails. Then you click a thumbnail and it takes you to a larger scaled down [not the original] image. Then when you click that it takes you to some image sharing site slathered with ads and chrome all over the page and another scaled down [not the original] image. If you're lucky, you can use some incantation of right-click and/or View Page Source to get the actual high-resolution original image that you're looking for. Total madness! When I'm looking for an image, I expect my search engine to return me a URL with .png or .jpg at the end of it.

Frost1x 7y ago

They've done this for well over a decade, I remember the transition and there was little outrage. Before, all the results generated were direct links without any wrappers. Then Google decided they needed to know which of the links people were clicking so they injected a wrapper around every link so they'd get a request from every click. Sure, it can be used to increase accuracy of search results. It can also be used to taylor data and profiles around individual users at finer and finer granularity.

GuB-42 7y ago

I just tried it on my phone and for some reason, links are wrapped except when I select "desktop version". Depending on some conditions that aren't always you get the true link or you get the wrapped link. My guess is that they have an array of techniques for tracking your clicks (js trickery, "ping" attribute,...) and resort to wrapping only when the other ones are less likely to work.

rmsaksida 7y ago

I think the reason why they did that originally was so HTTP websites would get referrer information from Google search results (HTTPS). Referrer data is dropped when going from HTTPS to HTTP. When Google first started using HTTPS, most of the web was unencrypted, and they wouldn't be able to track the referrer in Google Analytics unless they added a redirector to search results.

stragies 7y ago

Does anybody here know, what the currently recommended Firefox Addon for removing these redirects is? The first few results from the searches all have recent "Doesn't work anymore"-ish comments.

GraemeL 7y ago
Nokinside linked a couple upthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21427367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21427367 The first one works for me.

jvolkman 7y ago

Is this still true? The html spec now supports a 'ping' attribute in addition to 'href' for pinging tracking URLs. I'm seeing that all results have the actual URL in 'href'. Example (Chrome): <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a&ved=2ahUKEwjmxMHk5MvlAhWVvp4KHS6lCqIQFjAAegQIABAB">

nanaya 7y ago
on my firefox, on click, it switches to the tracking url (there's an onmousedown event). It does use the ping attribute on chrome.