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Re: DuckDuckGo: finally tracks me?

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Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.net> wrote:
>>>>>> Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> writes:
>>>>>> Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.net> wrote:
> 
> >> Contrary to virtually all the other major search engines out there,
> >> DuckDuckGo used to provide "direct" links to the pages found, like:
> >> http://example.com/.
> 
> >> As it seems, it changed around January 12th, and now the links are
> >> redirected via their server instead, like [1]:
> 
> >> https://duckduckgo.com/l/?kh=-1&uddg=http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2F
> 
> >> So, whenever I choose to follow the link, I do that by informing
> >> their server that I am, indeed, following that link, and only then
> >> the server kindly redirects me to the resource proper.
> 
> >> Any idea on what may be going on?
> 
> > I ran into this problem late last year.  I always use the "lite"
> > version of the website ( https://duckduckgo.com/lite/ )
> 
>        Makes me wonder how "lite" differs from "HTML".  (If anything,
>        it doesn't seem to be covered in the help [2].)
> 
> [1] https://duckduckgo.com/html/?q=example.com
> [2] https://duck.co/help/features/non-javascript

A quick look at the page source seems to indicate that "/html/" uses
css, while "/lite/" puts all the results in a table. There may well
be other concents to compatibility as well. "/lite/" looks much nicer
in Dillo, and I use it in Firefox as well because I think I worked out
that it was quicker (it's smaller in any case).

> > along with various "parameters" in the search string configured in my
> > web browsers.  The parameter "kd=-1" disables the redirects and gives
> > you real direct links:
> 
> > " https://duckduckgo.com/lite/?kd=-1&q=[search query] "
> > " https://duckduckgo.com/html/?kd=-1&q=[search query] "
> 
>        Indeed, that does the trick.  Thanks!
> 
> > I soon found this switch when they originally started referring links
> > on the "lite" site. It's rather ambiguously called "redirect" on the
> > URL parameters list ( https://duckduckgo.com/params ).
> 
>        They do not seem to advertise that page much, now do they?

To be fair, advertising is one of the things I use a parameter to
turn off. :)

> > I was very eager to find a way to turn the function off because my
> > most used web browser, Dillo, didn't work with their redirect system
> > (it used some, possibly non-standard, script-free referrer tag) and I
> > was either manually editing links or giving up and going back to
> > Google (whose redirects do work in Dillo).
> 
>        Actually, they use both a trivial <script /> and a "refresh"
>        <meta /> on the redirect pages.  The latter is standard per
>        HTML5 4.2.5 [3].
> 
> [3] http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/document-metadata.html#attr-meta-http-equiv-refresh

I see, Dillo and myself haven't caught up with HTML5 yet.

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DuckDuckGo: finally tracks me? Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.net> - 2017-03-31 07:13 +0000
  Re: DuckDuckGo: finally tracks me? Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2017-03-31 08:33 +0100
    Re: DuckDuckGo: finally tracks me? Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.net> - 2017-03-31 08:07 +0000
  Re: DuckDuckGo: finally tracks me? Kees Nuyt <k.nuyt@nospam.demon.nl> - 2017-03-31 18:28 +0200
  Re: DuckDuckGo: finally tracks me? Michael Forsythe <forsythe@example.com> - 2017-03-31 17:34 +0000
    Re: DuckDuckGo: finally tracks me? Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.net> - 2017-03-31 18:33 +0000
  Re: DuckDuckGo: finally tracks me? not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2017-04-01 02:08 +0000
    Re: DuckDuckGo: finally tracks me? not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2017-04-01 02:17 +0000
    Re: DuckDuckGo: finally tracks me? Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> - 2017-04-01 05:51 +0000
    Re: DuckDuckGo: finally tracks me? Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.net> - 2017-04-05 05:57 +0000
      Re: DuckDuckGo: finally tracks me? not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2017-04-05 23:08 +0000
        Re: DuckDuckGo: finally tracks me? Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.net> - 2017-04-06 17:25 +0000

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