Does opening a new browser for each new site increase privacy?

[sk]

Assuming one is not using a program to disguise the referrer header, does it increase privacy to always open a new browser window so that the only referrer that would show ever up would be one's homepage, as opposed to a daisychain of different sites? Would that provide the ad mongers with a smaller footprint, so to speak?

sk

[Mike_Healan]

No. If you clicked a link to get to the next site, your browser will send the HTTP_REFERRER information.

[sk]

Thanks.

sk

[spy1]

Mike - How about if your IE always started with a blank home-page?

You have all your favorite sites book-marked, and after you open the blank IE page, you click on one of your favorites, read everything you want to there, then go back to your 'homepage', click on another bookmark....

If you pick up a new link, just copy it, back to homepage, paste it, go there, etc.

Definitely awkward, but wouldn't always starting from a blank page eliminate any referer concern? Pete

[sk]

quoting: spy1 link=board=22;threadid=5933;start=0#39732 date=1041778282]
Mike - How about if your IE always started with a blank home-page?

You have all your favorite sites book-marked, and after you open the blank IE page, you click on one of your favorites, read everything you want to there, then go back to your 'homepage', click on another bookmark....

If you pick up a new link, just copy it, back to homepage, paste it, go there, etc.

Definitely awkward, but wouldn't always starting from a blank page eliminate any referer concern? Pete

That's kind of what I was getting at. And obviously it's very awkward, and maybe not even that practical, but it would seem to at least cut down significantly on the amount of referrer information we were providing to different sites. Thanks, Pete, for posting.

sk

[luv2bsecure]

Pete!

Gawd it's great to see you posting. New people who don't know Pete.....this guy is a phenomenal person with a wealth of ideas and knowledge.

As sometimes can happen, Pete and I started out "on the wrong foot" as they say. I think (and I think I can speak for both of us) that we both learned that we were way off on first impressions and proceeded to learn a lot together. A great person to have at Wilders - and a great friend.

Pete, I want to sticky you to this place. AND, in all seriousness, I hope things are looking good on all fronts in your life back on the ranch.

We have so many new people who have quickly become great new additions to our little corner of the web. I think you're going to like being back here - it's kickin' on all cylinders.

WELCOME HOME PETE!

John
Luv2BSecure

[Mike_Healan]

Yeah, if you get there by clicking a favorite/bookmark, then it would show as a "direct request" regardless of what address was open in the window.

There is a filter in Proxomitron that lets you return whatever referrer you want. I once had mine set to "Privacy is a right. Respect mine". Then I realized I was the only person on earth that had that, so I changed it back to default to blend into the crowd.

[MickeyTheMan]

quoting: spy1 link=board=22;threadid=5933;start=0#39732 date=1041778282]
Mike - How about if your IE always started with a blank home-page?

You have all your favorite sites book-marked, and after you open the blank IE page, you click on one of your favorites, read everything you want to there, then go back to your 'homepage', click on another bookmark....

If you pick up a new link, just copy it, back to homepage, paste it, go there, etc.

Definitely awkward, but wouldn't always starting from a blank page eliminate any referer concern? Pete

Pete, yesd that would work, but why go through all that aggavation when a simple proxy will do that for you anyway automatically without the rsik of forgetting to do it even once.

[JayK]

quoting: Mike Healan link=board=22;threadid=5933;start=0#39809 date=1041806200]
Yeah, if you get there by clicking a favorite/bookmark, then it would show as a "direct request" regardless of what address was open in the window.

There is a filter in Proxomitron that lets you return whatever referrer you want. I once had mine set to "Privacy is a right. Respect mine". Then I realized I was the only person on earth that had that, so I changed it back to default to blend into the crowd.

What's The best? The default in Proxomitron, send back as referrer whatever page you are visiting. (off topic, I'm reading a post from webmaster world forum about analysing web logs where referrers appear to come within the same site if not page, I'm wondering if how many were a result about Proxo or similar)

I have a web site myself, and when I look at my weblogs I can see some funny referrers that are clearly from firewalls like Outpost. Dumb idea, since if I was a malicious
hacker this gives me info about your firewall..

Of course, knowing this a smart user could change his referrer to micmick that, but I'm guessing most people are not that paranoid yet.

[Mike_Healan]

I don't see this as a big problem. I look through my logs to see where my site is being talked about. I discovered it in a BBC article once doing this, and another time I figured out I'd been mentioned in the Langalist Plus even though I wasn't a subsriber.

I detest that Outpost referrer replacement. That's nothing but spamming. There are also hard core porn sites that send out bots crawling all over the place so they can have a spoofed referrer logged. They're doing it apparently because a lot of web loggers have scripts which display recent referrers and they're trying to scam some extra traffic.

I'd say either leave it alone or don't return one at all. At one point on my site I had all images blocked if they didn't load on a site with a domain I allowed, but people messing around with their referrers couldn't see my images even though they were on my site. If the referrer was an approved domain or left blank, the image would load fine.

I did it to prevent hotlinking. There was some idiot on a message board that had a huge image from my site loading in his signature. I had over 30,000 hits from it! I finally figured out how to block specific domains/IP addresses, so I just blocked that site.

[spy1]

"If the referrer was an approved domain or left blank, the image would load fine."

Okay, so if "left blank" means the same as starting out with a blank page in IE, couldn't Prox (or whatever proxy) users just have their proxy give out 'blank' for the referer - thus gaining all the functionality of a given site - without giving away any info about where they came from? (I don't use a proxy anymore).

Or is that what they're doing already?

Hi, L2BS! Great to be back! And thank you very much for the warm welcome - it's appreciated. Pete

[Mike_Healan]

Open Proxo's config box and click headers, then click the OUT box for the setting highlighted in this screenshot.

Okay, so if "left blank" means the same as starting out with a blank page in IE, couldn't Prox (or whatever proxy) users just have their proxy give out 'blank' for the referer - thus gaining all the functionality of a given site - without giving away any info about where they came from?

Yeah.

I really recommend either blocking it entirely or leaving it alone. Spoofing it could lead to problems, but most sites that block hotlinking allow a blank referrer access.