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posted by chromas on Thursday January 10 2019, @04:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the time-to-switch-to-dodododogo dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Is this for real? DuckDuckGo has grown in popularity primarily on its claim: We don't track you. Is this no longer true?

DuckDuckGo now fingerprinting visitors

DuckDuckGo is using the Canvas DOMRect API on their search engine. Canvas is used to make unique geometry measurements on target browsers, and DOMRect API uses rectangles. This can be verified with the CanvasBlocker Firefox add-on by Korbinian Kapsner. DDG has recently been redirecting some website navigations to cute pictures with remarks about their privacy promises. The organization is now seeking to expand their Internet presence. DDG are without question data brokers, and commercial websites that make promises like DDG does will not survive for long if they actually keep them.


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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 10 2019, @06:44PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 10 2019, @06:44PM (#784608)

    Yes, DuckDuckGo supports using POST requests (to hide query terms from referrer URIs) and link redirectors (for the same purpose). You can enable or disable either or both of these privacy options as desired [duck.co]. Apparently the redirectors are not required in modern browsers to avoid referrer leakage [duck.co].

    The "html" version of the search appears to always use POST requests and never uses link redirectors, regardless of the settings.

    Personally I use a browser which never sends Referer headers across domains to avoid this kind of leakage.

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