For Chrome and Safari users, Google doesn’t even need to do link redirection. Chrome supports the “ping” attribute on <a> links which basically tells the browser to make an asynchronous logging request in the background when the user clicks a link. On Firefox, Google has to keep using redirects. https://caniuse.com/#search=Ping

The official name for this spec is “hyperlinking auditing”...

For all browsers they could get rid of redirects and just use JS, if they wanted, and that's much harder to block.

Deleting redirect cookies is a wonderful step forward in improving privacy.

I'm now concerned that companies would attempt to circumvent this by profiling users via fingerprinting through canvas, screen resolution, user agent and other means.

I wonder how such profiling can be minimized / eliminated ?

As of January [1], it looks like Firefox enabled fingerprinting protection by default. Expert users may have overridden settings in various ways that could prevent those protections from being active. To verify, at Preferences > Privacy > Tracking Protection (about:preferences#privacy), make sure you've selected an option that includes Fingerprinting protection.

[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/how-to-block-fingerprinting...

Note that I think this blocking is done not by detecting a site doing it, but instead by using block lists: Firefox has a list of sites where third-party resources, including JS that would do canvas fingerprinting, will be blocked.

As I understand it, this is different from the various "resistFingerprinting" ("RFP") settings in about:config, which will work on every site (and are notorious for breaking things). Ditto CanvasBlocker, which AFAIK runs on every site.

I got this info from one of the links in the informative post you cited: https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2020/01/07/firefox-72-fing...

Yeah, I definitely wouldn’t enable resistFingerprinting for anyone I’m responsible for providing tech support to! If y’all want to experiment with it, go ahead, but be prepared to be angry at your browser and/or websites as things mysteriously break without explanation.

I've disabled canvas for all sites. I don't notice a lot of breakage, so it seems it's primarily used for fingerprinting.

The only place I've whitelisted is Youtube, because of course Google is spying on you, and won't let you watch Youtube unless you allow them.

> course Google is spying on you, and won't let you watch Youtube unless you allow them

Or circumvent their restrictions with eg. Invidious or youtube-dl

Fingerprinting is already happening

Those fixes still have to resolve the url.

The best fix is using duck.com and getting off Google search.

Isn't is possible to resolve the URL locally? It looks like it's just part of the redirect URL in the example given above

I use this extension. It resolves the redirect locally.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/skip-redirect...

If you use uBlock Origin , go to My Filters and add this

https://pastebin.com/M6Jah286

That will probably break google maps and many other things. Just add this:

    google.*##+js(set, rwt, noopFunc)

Hmmm.. I've been using Google Maps with that filter for over 6 months.

What is breaking/supposed to break? I might have to remove the filters from all my machines.

I would just be cautious defusing event listeners on the entire google.com, better to make filters specific when possible.

real url is right in the tracking one ..... AhAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSunday&usg=AOvVaw3AEEL2UuDK8DJPu1wtWera