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I tried this recently and promptly uninstalled after discovering Google search result links were still hijacked to go through a tracker redirect.
by jaytaylor 5y ago
I tried this recently and promptly uninstalled after discovering Google search result links were still hijacked to go through a tracker redirect.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y agoThis "TrackerZapper" seems to only address the end of the URL not the beginning, suffix versus prefix, right versus left. Tracking can of course be accomplished by prefixing or "shortening" URLs, too. Thats what Google, Facebook, Twitter, even DuckDuckGo, routinely do. These websites, and many more, are wont to claim that they do prefixing or shortening for the users benefit, e.g., to remove the Referer header, or to screen external URLs for "safety", however there is no enforceable agreement with users where the website agrees it will limit the use of this data to any purpose. These third party websites have freedom to use it however they wish. URL sanitisation is easy using a local proxy. This way we can have rules that are site-specific. Not every site needs it, but for those that do, we can write specific rules. The proxy also allows us to log HTTP traffic and to limit redirection through a variety of methods, so its easier to discover when attempted redirects are occuring. Every redirect is an opportunity for data collection, whether its used for that purpose or not. If "data is the new oil" then it contributes to greenhouse gases.
- jaytaylor 5y agoFWIW as a follow-up, this extension does seem to clean google tracker redirects from search results: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-google-redirections/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-google...