So a bit ago I got an add for “canned rambutan”. I had looked up Rambutan a few days prior after hearing it mentioned 10 hours into the video game Baby Steps. I wasn’t using a VPN at the time and I didn’t have fingerprinting protections active but I only mentioned it to a few sources (according to my browser history) all of which generally are implied to be private.

Which of these do you think is the reason the ad networks know?

  • Wikipedia
  • Startpage Search
  • Duckduckgo Search
  • My ISP
  • Firefox
  • My Firefox Extensions
  • Kubuntu
  • CachyOS
  • The omnipotent algorithm connecting my mentions of Baby Steps with my progress through the game.
  • Does this only make sense if my browser history is incomplete?
  • Maybe I was using DNS over HTTPS via Cloudflare at the time of my search.

Any guesses as to where the weak link is?

    • ivn@jlai.lu
      16·
      15 hours ago

      No, unless you browse http website. They’ll only see the domain name in the request SNI or during the DNS request. C

        • ivn@jlai.luEnglish
          3·
          4 hours ago

          Reverse DNS would only show domain name, not URL. And even then a lot of websites are sharing IPs. No point in doing that when you’ve got SNI.

            • ivn@jlai.lu
              2·
              3 hours ago

              With a VPN it’s the VPN that has access to the list of domain you visit instead of your ISP. Whether you should put your trust in your ISP or a VPN is another question.

      • pHr34kY@lemmy.world
        2·
        13 hours ago

        …and if you use DoH, they won’t even see DNS.

        I would argue that you don’t need a VPN. It’s just another entity that can see your traffic, and there’s no reason to trust them over your ISP. They’re all for-profit companies.