google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update • Hacker News Board

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#541

Post by smart_asslop » Sun, Sep 13, 2026, 6:12 AM UTC

brainwad wrote: post #540

smart_asslop wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello! It appears that you are disseminating misinformation. A uBlock Origin developer now confirms, regarding Google results click tracking: It existed in a way or another, but it could be blocked. Now it can't. Which corroborates the mysteriously flagged sibling comment. https://old.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1we7491/how_t... Next time, please consider listening to people who know how the web works and avoi…

It's not misinformation. By default Google has been able to click track with JS. If you disable JS, they don't serve you search ( https://serpapi.com/blog/google-now-requires-javascript/ ). Yes, if you are tricky, you can block just the part of the JS that does click tracking, probably. But most users can't do that. They therefore were already getting 99% complete click tracking before this change. This change is not…

>By default Google has been able to click track with JS. If you disable JS, they don't serve you search (https://serpapi.com/blog/google-now-requires-javascript/).

This discussion is about search results pages with JavaScript enabled.

>And btw about the result filtering the uBlock dev wants to do

For a long time, uBlock Origin has kept up with blocking Google's click tracking out of the box with the default Privacy filter list (privacy.txt).

https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/blob/master/filters/...

This means that all uBlock Origin users (even people with no Google account) would NOT be click-tracked, WITH JavaScript enabled.

You say "They own the JS on the page", so the topic of discussion here is simply whether users could block click tracking on the client side.

And until now, they could have: by installing uBlock Origin or any content blocker with a sane privacy list.

Now, they cannot.

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#542

Post by dwedge » Sun, Sep 13, 2026, 6:29 AM UTC

Cider9986 wrote: post #533

dwedge wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they still mitm sites to put their brave crypto donation buttons on, so you think a content creator is getting the money?

I've never seen anything crypto related once I set up the browser. What happened wasn't a MITM but they fixed it, right? It's the only recommended Chromium browser by Privacy Guides. https://www.privacyguides.org/en/desktop-browsers/#brave

They injected crypto donate buttons below, for example, tweets to make them look like twitter had a donate option. The sites were sent over https, it was mitm

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#543

Post by pmontra » Sun, Sep 13, 2026, 6:42 AM UTC

makeitdouble wrote: post #437

pmontra wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's two totally different matters. I won't be first, second or third in the AI race. I'm not even participating in that race. I don't care who wins. However my private data are mine and I do care about them. It's Google and those other companies that may not care about my privacy, because the AI race is more important to them. If AI is going to cost too much, I will use a cheaper one (Ferrari or FIAT?) or if every A…

> You're paying with your data. Parent was pointing at the value exchange, and I argued that users' privacy is not the currency Google deals with. Your privacy can be valuable to you, it just has no weight on the exchange.

I agree that "privacy is not the currency Google deals with."

However when I run an adblocker and Blockada on Android, when I use alternatives to the YouTube app (and Google is technologically fighting them) when I don't log into Google, then those exchanges happen with very little of the currency Google is interested in.

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#544

Post by MiroslavPokorny » Sun, Sep 13, 2026, 6:47 AM UTC

HappMacDonald wrote: post #119

MiroslavPokorny wrote: post #90

Dont worry in a year or two, Google wont even redirect you to the actual true url, instead everything will be a page with all links rewritten so all http is tunnelled thru them.

Doesn't this just describe AMP?

Not really because AMP is a cutdown of a fully interactive HTML app.

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#545

Post by chadgpt3 » Sun, Sep 13, 2026, 7:01 AM UTC

dotancohen wrote: post #427

chadgpt3 wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please make the same analysis for Germany in regard to the Gleiwitz radio station

To other readers: Parent is suggesting that the 6000 Gazans who breached the Israeli border on October 7th 2023 and killed 1200 people, mutilated bodies, beheaded humans and dogs alike, raped women, and took over 250 hostages including infants... Parent is suggesting that these people were undercover Israeli agents performing a false flag operation.

you are not sane