3 ms·

It could have to do with all the tracking the new reddit does. Just open the network tab and see it firing off network requests as you move the mouse.

qwerty456127 7y ago
That's crazy. By the way it probably even is possible to fingerptint a user by their mouse moving patterns.
- pault 7y ago
  When you capture this data you can replay a user's session as if you were looking over their shoulder. Logrocket is a good example of this kind of platform. You can configure it to blacklist certain elements, but it is undoubtedly creepy as hell when used on a site like Reddit where people are communicating with each other.
pault 7y ago
Not that I condone it, but FWIW this is a common form of analytics called session recording. I use it on back office apps for troubleshooting, but I would be horrified if someone asked me to add it to a consumer facing app that people use in their day to day lives.
_ps6d 7y ago
And to make it worse, they started sending that tracking data through "functionality" endpoints to make it difficult or impossible for extensions like uBlock Origin to block without breaking the site. I believe it would pick a random endpoint out of a few possible choices, but as one example, it would sometimes use the same endpoint as voting, so that couldn't be blocked without also preventing you from being able to vote. It's possible to detect the difference between the request types if you examine the actual data on them, but the common privacy extensions don't usually examine the requests on that level.
- kyboren 7y ago
  > It's possible to detect the difference between the request types if you examine the actual data on them With things like this and the trend towards first-party CNAME records for adtech partners, I think this is the next step in the adblocker arms race: content-sensitive request firewalls. I'm not sure exactly what adblockers will hook where, but I'm sure if necessary we'll see people LD_PRELOAD'ing and injecting DLLs into their browser to cut this shit out.

qwerty456127 7y ago

That's crazy. By the way it probably even is possible to fingerptint a user by their mouse moving patterns.

pault 7y ago
When you capture this data you can replay a user's session as if you were looking over their shoulder. Logrocket is a good example of this kind of platform. You can configure it to blacklist certain elements, but it is undoubtedly creepy as hell when used on a site like Reddit where people are communicating with each other.

pault 7y ago

Not that I condone it, but FWIW this is a common form of analytics called session recording. I use it on back office apps for troubleshooting, but I would be horrified if someone asked me to add it to a consumer facing app that people use in their day to day lives.

_ps6d 7y ago

And to make it worse, they started sending that tracking data through "functionality" endpoints to make it difficult or impossible for extensions like uBlock Origin to block without breaking the site. I believe it would pick a random endpoint out of a few possible choices, but as one example, it would sometimes use the same endpoint as voting, so that couldn't be blocked without also preventing you from being able to vote. It's possible to detect the difference between the request types if you examine the actual data on them, but the common privacy extensions don't usually examine the requests on that level.

kyboren 7y ago
> It's possible to detect the difference between the request types if you examine the actual data on them With things like this and the trend towards first-party CNAME records for adtech partners, I think this is the next step in the adblocker arms race: content-sensitive request firewalls. I'm not sure exactly what adblockers will hook where, but I'm sure if necessary we'll see people LD_PRELOAD'ing and injecting DLLs into their browser to cut this shit out.