7 ms·

There is simple way to speed this up. All Google Search links point to redirection service: www.google.gr/url?example.com. It is trivial to write script which m

by qwerta 12y ago

There is simple way to speed this up. All Google Search links point to redirection service: www.google.gr/url?example.com. It is trivial to write script which makes those links direct.

j_s 12y ago
A couple open source add-ons to do this: Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/undirect/dohbiijnjeiejifbgfdhfknogknkglio/reviews https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/undirect/dohbiijnj... (source: https://code.google.com/p/undirect/ https://code.google.com/p/undirect/ ) Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-no-tracking-url/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-no-tra... (source: http://matagus.github.io/remove-google-redirects-addon/ http://matagus.github.io/remove-google-redirects-addon/ ) They sometimes run into issues as Google tweaks the search results page.
wlamond 12y ago
I don't work at Google, but I think they do that to gather click through data for links and positions on the results page. Simply linking to the destination would prevent them from learning valuable information about the quality of their search engine and what users think is valuable.
- lkbm 12y ago
  I'm sure they do. They could probably get that data from the vast majority of users using Javascript. I assume a concurrent onclick request wouldn't slow things down noticeably.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - nezza-_- 12y ago
    An onclick request wouldn't be concurrent with the loading of the new page.
    - dchichkov 12y ago
      How about a right click? Google substitutes the link on the right-click as well. Which creates loads of frustration for users wanting to copy say a link to a research paper to an e-mail.
- _lce0 12y ago
  they do click traking on any Google product.. Just try to click in a gmail attachment.. Seriously, Why on earth do the need to track those as well?
acdha 12y ago
They use that to improve search quality by seeing which links people actually click on – a key signal they're not going to give up – but the good news is that there's a better way to do that and they're already using it. HTML5 added a ping attribute to the <a> tag which tells the browser to make an untracked asynchronous request to a different URL to record the click: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a#attr-ping https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a#... According to the same author, that was deployed over a year ago but only to browsers which support it: https://plus.google.com/+IlyaGrigorik/posts/fPJNzUf76Nx https://plus.google.com/+IlyaGrigorik/posts/fPJNzUf76Nx Unfortunately, this was implemented in Firefox years ago but disabled due to a fear-mongering campaign by some self-styled privacy advocates who were quite vocal in sharing their misunderstanding of web privacy: https://web.archive.org/web/20060126211610/http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/darin/archives/009594.html https://web.archive.org/web/20060126211610/http://weblogs.mo... EDIT: I forgot to mention the new Beacon API, which is getting more traction because it's more powerful and is fully supported as of Firefox 31: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/navigator.sendBeacon https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/navigator.s...
- nly 12y ago
  > Unfortunately, this was implemented in Firefox years ago but disabled due to a fear-mongering campaign by some self-styled privacy advocates who were quite vocal in sharing their misunderstanding of web privacy What 'misunderstanding'? I don't want people knowing what third party links I'm clicking on. There's no misunderstanding. I understand it perfectly. I just don't want it. I disable 3rd party HTTP referers as well (using the RefControl extension). Sure it's not the only way sites can implement this behaviour, and I'm glad an official way exists... but only so Google will use it and then I can disable it. The argument against having an off switch is basically 'well, they're going to fuck you anyway, so bend over and here's some lube'. You say 'some self-styled privacy advocates' are fear-mongering, well its because webheads keep implementing insanely harmful features and aren't actively making the web better for the privacy concious. They (we, I guess) are grossly under-served. The response to link tracking should be "Hmm, how can we have websites ask for this permission, and shut down all these nasty means of doing it?" not "oh boy, these people are tracking people in an ugly way, how can we make this fast?". But guess which one is actually a hard problem. Do you suppose that most everyday users know (not suspect, but know) that Google are watching every link they click on? A technologically illiterate user base cannot consent.
igrigorik 12y ago
Actually, this is already handled with <a ping>, see earlier post: https://plus.google.com/+IlyaGrigorik/posts/fPJNzUf76Nx https://plus.google.com/+IlyaGrigorik/posts/fPJNzUf76Nx - you're right it's a big latency improvement!
Animats 12y ago
If you do that, and block ads, and block trackers with Ghostery, you'll get a substantial improvement in performance.
rasz_pl 12y ago
// Google Tracking-B-Gone // version 2.2.1 // Release Date: 2014-02-28 // http://userscripts.org/scripts/upload/47300 http://userscripts.org/scripts/upload/47300 of course userscripts.org is gone now(why?), but you can find this script on other places.
bdaw11 12y ago
There is a Firefox plugin that does that: Clean Links.

by qwerta 12y ago

There is simple way to speed this up. All Google Search links point to redirection service: www.google.gr/url?example.com. It is trivial to write script which makes those links direct.

j_s 12y ago

A couple open source add-ons to do this: Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/undirect/dohbiijnjeiejifbgfdhfknogknkglio/reviews https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/undirect/dohbiijnj... (source: https://code.google.com/p/undirect/ https://code.google.com/p/undirect/ ) Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-no-tracking-url/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-no-tra... (source: http://matagus.github.io/remove-google-redirects-addon/ http://matagus.github.io/remove-google-redirects-addon/ ) They sometimes run into issues as Google tweaks the search results page.

wlamond 12y ago

I don't work at Google, but I think they do that to gather click through data for links and positions on the results page. Simply linking to the destination would prevent them from learning valuable information about the quality of their search engine and what users think is valuable.

lkbm 12y ago
I'm sure they do. They could probably get that data from the vast majority of users using Javascript. I assume a concurrent onclick request wouldn't slow things down noticeably.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- nezza-_- 12y ago
  An onclick request wouldn't be concurrent with the loading of the new page.
  - dchichkov 12y ago
    How about a right click? Google substitutes the link on the right-click as well. Which creates loads of frustration for users wanting to copy say a link to a research paper to an e-mail.
_lce0 12y ago
they do click traking on any Google product.. Just try to click in a gmail attachment.. Seriously, Why on earth do the need to track those as well?

acdha 12y ago

They use that to improve search quality by seeing which links people actually click on – a key signal they're not going to give up – but the good news is that there's a better way to do that and they're already using it. HTML5 added a ping attribute to the <a> tag which tells the browser to make an untracked asynchronous request to a different URL to record the click: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a#attr-ping https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a#... According to the same author, that was deployed over a year ago but only to browsers which support it: https://plus.google.com/+IlyaGrigorik/posts/fPJNzUf76Nx https://plus.google.com/+IlyaGrigorik/posts/fPJNzUf76Nx Unfortunately, this was implemented in Firefox years ago but disabled due to a fear-mongering campaign by some self-styled privacy advocates who were quite vocal in sharing their misunderstanding of web privacy: https://web.archive.org/web/20060126211610/http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/darin/archives/009594.html https://web.archive.org/web/20060126211610/http://weblogs.mo... EDIT: I forgot to mention the new Beacon API, which is getting more traction because it's more powerful and is fully supported as of Firefox 31: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/navigator.sendBeacon https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/navigator.s...

nly 12y ago
> Unfortunately, this was implemented in Firefox years ago but disabled due to a fear-mongering campaign by some self-styled privacy advocates who were quite vocal in sharing their misunderstanding of web privacy What 'misunderstanding'? I don't want people knowing what third party links I'm clicking on. There's no misunderstanding. I understand it perfectly. I just don't want it. I disable 3rd party HTTP referers as well (using the RefControl extension). Sure it's not the only way sites can implement this behaviour, and I'm glad an official way exists... but only so Google will use it and then I can disable it. The argument against having an off switch is basically 'well, they're going to fuck you anyway, so bend over and here's some lube'. You say 'some self-styled privacy advocates' are fear-mongering, well its because webheads keep implementing insanely harmful features and aren't actively making the web better for the privacy concious. They (we, I guess) are grossly under-served. The response to link tracking should be "Hmm, how can we have websites ask for this permission, and shut down all these nasty means of doing it?" not "oh boy, these people are tracking people in an ugly way, how can we make this fast?". But guess which one is actually a hard problem. Do you suppose that most everyday users know (not suspect, but know) that Google are watching every link they click on? A technologically illiterate user base cannot consent.

igrigorik 12y ago

Actually, this is already handled with <a ping>, see earlier post: https://plus.google.com/+IlyaGrigorik/posts/fPJNzUf76Nx https://plus.google.com/+IlyaGrigorik/posts/fPJNzUf76Nx - you're right it's a big latency improvement!

Animats 12y ago

If you do that, and block ads, and block trackers with Ghostery, you'll get a substantial improvement in performance.

rasz_pl 12y ago

// Google Tracking-B-Gone // version 2.2.1 // Release Date: 2014-02-28 // http://userscripts.org/scripts/upload/47300 http://userscripts.org/scripts/upload/47300 of course userscripts.org is gone now(why?), but you can find this script on other places.

bdaw11 12y ago

There is a Firefox plugin that does that: Clean Links.