What Web Browser Do You Use?

[superpagla]

I use Firefox most of the time...Chrome for some special sites......In-private in IE 8(very few)

[kallieb]

I love firefox. Its smooth. Works best with most sites, and the add-ons are an absolute bonus

[nova250]

I use firefox. Mozilla forever

[zot]

I decided to try out the just-released version 6 of Firefox, and was surprised and disappointed to learn that a type of spyware is built-in.

Basically, URL hotlinks secretly go to a Google address, which are then forwarded to the actual address. So Google knows the websites we visit, but we don't (easily) know that we're being monitored by Big Brother.

So, let me get this straight... the browser rewrites every link to bounce through Google first, and deliberately hides that from you? That's disgusting.

Would love to see some proof. Why the hell would Firefox redirect you through Google?

Sorry, I forgot to mention more specifics on Firefox's built-in spyware. It's on Google.com and News.google.com that a lot of Firefox's search results are actually redirect links that go to Google.com and then get redirected to the actual address. Google has been doing this --on and off-- for the past year or so. I presume Google's reason for *snooping* everyone's site visits is so they can push the most visited sites higher in their search rankings.

Even within a given set of search results, some links are referral links and others are not. I was just experimenting and discovered that Google's redirect links appear to target users with specific IP ranges (the same search results that have one or more referral links when using a US IP address contains zero referral links using German and Dutch proxies.)

In most web browsers, when you hold the cursor over a web URL link, the address appears at the bottom left corner of the browser. What has recently changed in Firefox is that when you mouse-over a link in Google's search results, the browser now disguises the Google redirect links to appear as if the links do not go to Google.com when they actually do. (but you can still sniff out those referral links if you pull up the page's source code)

It seems that No other URL redirect links (such as FST's own) are made invisible. Only Google's.

So why does Firefox do this? Apparently Google, Inc. paid the Mozilla corporation $104 million for this and other preferential treatments to be built into Firefox.

http://www.extremetech.com/internet/92558-how-browsers-make-money-or-why-google-needs-firefox

http://www.extremetech.com/internet/...-needs-firefox


Final thought: Anyone know of any Firefox plugins that will remove this "feature"?

[Glaucon]

Sorry, I forgot to mention more specifics on Firefox's built-in spyware. It's on Google.com and News.google.com that a lot of Firefox's search results are actually redirect links that go to Google.com and then get redirected to the actual address. Google has been doing this --on and off-- for the past year or so. I presume Google's reason for *snooping* everyone's site visits is so they can push the most visited sites higher in their search rankings.

Even within a given set of search results, some links are referral links and others are not. I was just experimenting and discovered that Google's redirect links appear to target users with specific IP ranges (the same search results that have one or more referral links when using a US IP address contains zero referral links using German and Dutch proxies.)

In most web browsers, when you hold the cursor over a web URL link, the address appears at the bottom left corner of the browser. What has recently changed in Firefox is that when you mouse-over a link in Google's search results, the browser now disguises the Google redirect links to appear as if the links do not go to Google.com when they actually do. (but you can still sniff out those referral links if you pull up the page's source code)

It seems that No other URL redirect links (such as FST's own) are made invisible. Only Google's.

So why does Firefox do this? Apparently Google, Inc. paid the Mozilla corporation $104 million for this and other preferential treatments to be built into Firefox.

http://www.extremetech.com/internet/92558-how-browsers-make-money-or-why-google-needs-firefox

http://www.extremetech.com/internet/...-needs-firefox


Final thought: Anyone know of any Firefox plugins that will remove this "feature"?

As far as I know, their contract only involves the search bar. Are you sure it's not the actual website that's redirecting you and not the browser?

[Microphoner]

Only Chrome.

[Mariusqk]

Firefox ftw