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URL shorteners set ad tracking cookies

ylukem.com

201–210 of 213 posts

Re: URL shorteners set ad tracking cookies

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry about that. I honestly didn't think anyone browsed the web without javascript enabled. How common is that? We do offer a simple to use api that you could build on top of to shorten link. Also an extension that offers the ability to shorten a url in one click. API Docs: https://t.ly/docs/ Extension: https://t.ly/extension

I browse with NoScript blocking JavaScript by default as too many web developers (or their managers) have violated my trust to not do Dodgy Stuff over the years. Unfortunately I don't believe there will ever exist accurate numbers of the true portion of people who browse a subset of the web with JavaScript disabled, at least partially because many of those same folks will prevent the means used to collect the data in…

Do you run native phone apps? Because they are 10000x worse. 75mb to display a website and 20 tracking/retargeting libs.

Apps are killing the open web anyway. People being born now will grow up without knowing what the web is.

I agree about the state of the web tho. I'm a web dev and I often browse with JS disabled and always with adblocking and pihole.

Re: URL shorteners set ad tracking cookies

#202
Isn't this kind of redirection to set a cookie something explicitly blocked by Safari's Block Cross-Site Tracking feature? And I believe Firefox introduced a similar feature as well (not sure about Chrome). I feel like this kind of redirect thing was explicitly called out in the blog post announcing the very first version of this feature.

Re: URL shorteners set ad tracking cookies

#203
Delete your cookies regularly... here's how with Python and Firefox. Maximum privacy, no need for extensions.

        import sqlite3
        import pprint

        def cnt():
          rows=csr.execute("select count(*) as nr from moz_cookies").fetchall()
          return rows[0][0]

        db=sqlite3.connect(r'C:\Users\XXXXXX\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY\cookies.sqlite')
        csr=db.cursor()

        ckbefore=cnt()
        rows=csr.execute("select host,count(*) as nr from moz_cookies group by 1").fetchall()
        for r in rows: print("- %3d %s" % (int(r[1]),r[0]) )

        csr.execute("delete from moz_cookies where host not in ("
                " 'your', 'own', 'list', 'of', "
                " 'sites', 'you', 'trust')")
        db.commit()

        ckafter=cnt()
        print("%d > %d cookies" % (ckbefore,ckafter) );

        csr.close()
        db.close()

Re: URL shorteners set ad tracking cookies

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No GUI. I think what I have created is something like a cross between Pi-Hole, Burp and something yet to be named. But it's faster, more flexible, uses different software and is Java-free.

Sorry if I was unclear, I wasn't asking about a GUI. I mean how do you interface with it as the user? I assume it isn't just something you launch and forget about given your description.

Oh, sorry I misunderstood. It is ideally run on a gateway, but can also be run on the same machine if using a UNIX-like OS that isn't locked own. I do interface with it a lot because I like to look at logs and dumps and experiment with configurations, but that's not required. Setup consists of a single script that sets up all the servers and imports the data. Any changes while using consist of editing text files. There are some tiny shell scripts and some helper tools I wrote in C to facilitate hands-on DNS management as I am very active in managing DNS data, I like to see IP addresses rather than hide them. I intentionally do many DNS lookups semi-manually. This is purely personal preference, not required. This system could be "set it and forget it" once you have the proxy configs and DNS data you want. The amount of DNS data I actually need to survive is quite small. Those outsourced blocklists the ad blockers use could be larger than personally curated whitelists, depending on the user. The DNS and proxy servers use little system resources.

A programmer with an excellent track record for reliability once said something like "The best interface is no interface." This is how I like things. I do not want to be required to costantly interact. He is the author of the DNS server and daemontools, which I use to control the servers.

HTH

Re: URL shorteners set ad tracking cookies

#206
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to consider checking for hosts listed in https://github.com/notracking/hosts-blocklists This is an excellent merged blocklist, with public whitelist (oisd is fully closed, no insight in what is whitelisted and why, also causing more false positives..)

No longer the case: https://oisd.nl/excludes.php

Right on time, sjhgvr can't allow his rep to be (rightly) blemished on any corner of the internet.

Re: URL shorteners set ad tracking cookies

#207

I currently host https://femto.pw/ - A URL shortener I've kept up for ~4 years and intend to indefinitely. It doesn't do anything with regards to tracking cookies or other dark patterns. It just redirects you using a 302 redirect.

Femto's links don't seem to unfurl on Facebook

Re: URL shorteners set ad tracking cookies

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry about that. I honestly didn't think anyone browsed the web without javascript enabled. How common is that? We do offer a simple to use api that you could build on top of to shorten link. Also an extension that offers the ability to shorten a url in one click. API Docs: https://t.ly/docs/ Extension: https://t.ly/extension

I browse with NoScript blocking JavaScript by default as too many web developers (or their managers) have violated my trust to not do Dodgy Stuff over the years. Unfortunately I don't believe there will ever exist accurate numbers of the true portion of people who browse a subset of the web with JavaScript disabled, at least partially because many of those same folks will prevent the means used to collect the data in…

It's an unfortunate effect. I feel conflicted about blocking all the tracking and stuff, as I believe most cites will ignore browsers such as mine in their statistics, where everyone has javascript, because analytics says so, and most will have webgl, webasm, canvas, webfont, notifications, whatever...

They probably don't count private browsers even when I am a logged-in paying user - who parses server logs these days.

Re: URL shorteners set ad tracking cookies

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I browse with NoScript blocking JavaScript by default as too many web developers (or their managers) have violated my trust to not do Dodgy Stuff over the years. Unfortunately I don't believe there will ever exist accurate numbers of the true portion of people who browse a subset of the web with JavaScript disabled, at least partially because many of those same folks will prevent the means used to collect the data in…

Do you run native phone apps? Because they are 10000x worse. 75mb to display a website and 20 tracking/retargeting libs. Apps are killing the open web anyway. People being born now will grow up without knowing what the web is. I agree about the state of the web tho. I'm a web dev and I often browse with JS disabled and always with adblocking and pihole.

Not OP, but only open source ones. It's a shame, but such is life.

I have 1 client-provided phone that I only power on for specific purposes that is not neutered and has a closed-source app.

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