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exploraz

exploraz on Hacker News

Re:In less than a year, Google made scraping 10× harder on Friday September 04, 2026 @09:14PM (#49572109)
It used to be like that when they still used "/url?..." redirect links, which have the destination URLs clearly exposed. Maybe it's an intended feature for checking out where does the link leads to. That behavior can be prevented by browser extensions.

Now, on desktop Firefox (private browsing mode, logged out), I see that it always links to the opaque goto URLs, instead of only overwriting on interaction.

Using Google Search while logged in on Chrome Android still presents the older non-opaque /url?... links though.

It's unfortunate that we cannot immediately inspect what the link will lead to, whether the link is the intended (and safe/expected) destination or not.

Re:Tell HN: Google Search to begin using opaque redirect URLs on searc... on Friday September 04, 2026 @09:03PM (#49572034)
More recent discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49506219
Re:In less than a year, Google made scraping 10× harder on Friday September 04, 2026 @09:00PM (#49572014)
Previous discussions:

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49447708

Re:Tell HN: Google Search to begin using opaque redirect URLs on searc... on Thursday August 27, 2026 @07:53AM (#49463295)
... for some reason (inside a script tag for me)

It never got overwritten back to the original destination URL with the same browsing environment (see my other comment).

Re:Tell HN: Google Search to begin using opaque redirect URLs on searc... on Wednesday August 26, 2026 @08:45AM (#49448105)
I encountered that on Firefox (with privacy setting both on strict, and I think also on default protection last time I encountered that) both on Android and desktop, and also Safari (iOS). Not sure about Chrome though.

Tell HN: Google Search to begin using opaque redirect URLs on search results

Posted by exploraz on Wednesday August 26, 2026 @08:19AM
from the self-post dept.

Recently, for a couple of months, I noticed that Google Search began to replace its /url?q=<encoded url> links into a more opaque one (/goto?url=<internal identifier>) randomly (indication of A/B testing) on my logged-out private browsing sessions.The old one (intermediate link with /url?sa=...q=...) will either be presented immediately after loading the page, or after the mouse has...

( Read More... | 8 comments | 4 points | on HN )
Re:Nitter project received cease and desist on Wednesday August 26, 2026 @07:53AM (#49447409)
... for pushing a commit.

Disregard. Now it's archived again

Re:Nitter project received cease and desist on Wednesday August 26, 2026 @06:58AM (#49446854)
... and now it isn't as I'm writing this
Re:Something Nobody Told You About the Image Element (It Can Overflow) on Sunday August 16, 2026 @08:27AM (#49319419)
Other hypotheses:

- VPN/Proxy/Datacenter IP/Tor usage

- Censorship bypass tools triggering destination server's firewall (suspicious TLS fingerprint or connection characteristics, or bad proxy IP)

- Bad ISP (e.g. one ISP IP address or range of addresses shared by so many users that could create collateral damage if one or more user gone rogue)

- Actual botnet/hidden residential proxy exit node on the same IP/local network (e.g. TV boxes or SDKs embedded inside apps that users are not aware of)

- Strict privacy settings (unlikely to cause 403 straight away), or obscure browsers (also unlikely, but can trigger firewall because of connection fingerprint/characteristics)

- Actual bad behavior (scraping, etc)

Re:Something Nobody Told You About the Image Element (It Can Overflow) on Sunday August 16, 2026 @07:17AM (#49318958)
Still working for me, your IP or browser request might be flagged by their firewall or anti-bot protection
Re:Something Nobody Told You About the Image Element (It Can Overflow) on Sunday August 16, 2026 @01:23AM (#49317154)
Okay, I've figured it out, thanks to the "test distros online" thingy to test version 145 and 148 as I previously mentioned.[0]

From Firefox 148 release notes for developers:[1]

> The overflow, overflow-x, and overflow-y CSS properties can now be used on replaced elements such as images, in the same way that they are used with other elements. Prior to this, replaced elements were always clipped to their bounding container. (Firefox bug 1999100).

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49272986 [1]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Rel...

Re:Something Nobody Told You About the Image Element (It Can Overflow) on Sunday August 16, 2026 @01:17AM (#49317129)
Works for me on FF stable 148.0, 153.0.4, but does not with FF 145.
Re:NPM publish-time malware scanning and dual-use metadata on Wednesday July 29, 2026 @09:06AM (#49097016)
Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49092172
Re:Mangrove Reviews – Read and Write Reviews/Ratings (Open Reviews Ass... on Tuesday July 21, 2026 @08:55AM (#48991723)
Found this open reviews platform while reading the 2026-07-16 CoMaps update change log,[1] which at a glance is a nice addition to CoMaps (still WIP I think).

[1]: https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/releases/tag/v2026.07.16-...

Feature request tracking: https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/issues/556

Re:Proton AG Services is currently experiencing some issues on Friday July 10, 2026 @10:11AM (#48860218)
(relevant context in another submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48859976)
Re:Proton Login Issues, anyone else impacted? on Friday July 10, 2026 @09:59AM (#48860039)
Yeah I also wanted to check out my inbox but it went down just as I wanted to sign in
Re:Proton Login Issues, anyone else impacted? on Friday July 10, 2026 @09:58AM (#48860021)
Earlier submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48859752
Re:Discord safety system falsely banned accounts for grid images, unba... on Tuesday July 07, 2026 @08:25AM (#48816763)
Nitter: https://xcancel.com/discord_support/status/20742828601237671...

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