Ask HN: How to stop Google SERP url redirect tracking? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to stop Google SERP url redirect tracking?

4 pointsest5 comments

Hi HN,

I used to use http://64.233.183.132/search?query=keyword with javascript disabled to stop Google from tracking my clicks in the search result page, now Google renderes ALL links as a redirect link on server to track my clicks, it's dangerous and may cause me to click phishing sites as there it's not obvious URL in the status bar now.

How do I disable it while using Google anonymousely?

I don't want to use userscript trick. Google kept change its page format all the time so the userscripts fails sooner or later.

DDG is OK for the moment but still lacks content in minor non-English languages, so I still have to use Google.

The basis of your question is untrue. The links on the page are direct links to the sites; what's shown in the status bar is where you'll be taken to when you click. The redirect is added through JavaScript on the onmousedown event. You can disable it by disabling JavaScript.

Sorry but no, this is today's upgrade in Google, I think. Try this in your shell

    curl --header "User-Agent: " "http://64.233.183.132/search?gbv=1&tbo=1&as_qdr=all&hl=en&num=50&q=keyword"

You can see all links are wrapped with `href="/url?q=`

Yes, it was used to be wrapped by javascript.

When I access that exact URL on a real browser, I get normal direct links.

    <a href="https://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/" class=l onmousedown="return ...

Yes, that's when you allow Javascript in your browser

If you don't allow javascript on this domain, the redirect is wrapped on Google server.

I will not trust Google Search running Javascript

Edit: Turns out Google will do a javascript redirect on the first tracked page, then the second page will display every links without wrapped. If this is not evil, I don't know what is.

The Firefox Google Search link fix add-on seems to do a decent job.

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