What 'misunderstanding'? I don't want people knowing what third party links I'm clicking on. There's no misunderstanding. I understand it perfectly. I just don't want it.
This is exactly what I was talking about: the misunderstanding is thinking that your outrage changes the privacy situation in any way. The options on offer are “Stop using Google” or “Let Google collect data about the search results you click on”; redirect scripts, <a ping> and Beacon are all simply implementation details for the latter option.
If you feel strongly about this contact your politicians and lobby for privacy laws restricting the data companies are allowed to collect. There's approximately zero chance that everyone will voluntarily stop measuring how well their search ranking algorithms work.
Disabling all the JS crap that modern sites layer on top of content - reduces memory and CPU usage. I paid for the memory and CPU, and I don't want several hundreds of MBs spent caching JS interpreter/optimizer data structures and analytics scripts wasting my CPU compute power - decreasing the battery life of my device.
While you may be right that the privacy angle is something that few users care about, there are real tangible benefits to disabling some of this stuff.
a) <a ping> doesn't involve JavaScript and actually saves battery power by reducing the amount of time where the network is active without being fully loaded
b) It's true that you paid for the device but Google pays for the service – the deal is that they pay for everything by showing you ads. If you disagree with that you're welcome to use or start a competitor but it's absurdly entitled to think that you have any grounds to demand that they change their business model.
a) Its true that it doesn't involve JS but not doing the ping itself would save the battery life even further.
b) Don't put words in other peoples mouths. How incredibly rude of you. I have not demanded that they change anything. My post makes no mention of any "business model".
My computer as of today allows me some control over the code that runs on the CPU and the data that gets transferred over the network. I'd like to exercise that option if and when I wish to. You're free to do whatever you want.
Yeah, it appears that they both add and remove the direct links in JS, so with JS disabled you never see the direct link (at least, that's what I get when I disable javascript).
Comments
This is exactly what I was talking about: the misunderstanding is thinking that your outrage changes the privacy situation in any way. The options on offer are “Stop using Google” or “Let Google collect data about the search results you click on”; redirect scripts, <a ping> and Beacon are all simply implementation details for the latter option.
If you feel strongly about this contact your politicians and lobby for privacy laws restricting the data companies are allowed to collect. There's approximately zero chance that everyone will voluntarily stop measuring how well their search ranking algorithms work.
Disabling all the JS crap that modern sites layer on top of content - reduces memory and CPU usage. I paid for the memory and CPU, and I don't want several hundreds of MBs spent caching JS interpreter/optimizer data structures and analytics scripts wasting my CPU compute power - decreasing the battery life of my device.
While you may be right that the privacy angle is something that few users care about, there are real tangible benefits to disabling some of this stuff.
a) <a ping> doesn't involve JavaScript and actually saves battery power by reducing the amount of time where the network is active without being fully loaded
b) It's true that you paid for the device but Google pays for the service – the deal is that they pay for everything by showing you ads. If you disagree with that you're welcome to use or start a competitor but it's absurdly entitled to think that you have any grounds to demand that they change their business model.
a) Its true that it doesn't involve JS but not doing the ping itself would save the battery life even further.
b) Don't put words in other peoples mouths. How incredibly rude of you. I have not demanded that they change anything. My post makes no mention of any "business model".
My computer as of today allows me some control over the code that runs on the CPU and the data that gets transferred over the network. I'd like to exercise that option if and when I wish to. You're free to do whatever you want.
That's fine but not especially relevant to the GP's point. The Google redirect and <a ping> don't require JavaScript.
Ah okay, I didn't know that. I thought that Google returned direct links when you disabled JS.
Yeah, it appears that they both add and remove the direct links in JS, so with JS disabled you never see the direct link (at least, that's what I get when I disable javascript).