About a week or two ago, I started noticing that I could no longer copy the clean links for search result hits on Google. I thought it was maybe some quirk of a browser I was using, but today when trying to copy a link to a Youtube video, I realized it was actually rolled out globally (it seems).
Basically instead of getting a
https://youtube/. com/watch?v=-ed6UeDp1ek link now through google, (spaced out link to avoid AutoMod)
you will get
https://www.google.com/goto?url=CAES<rest-of-encrypted-blob-containing--versionByte-keyID-cipherText>
The article describes the change in technical detail, and mentions a fix, but the author has kept it private for now so Google doesn't patch it up (like they probably will or have for this workaround relying on the "Translate Page" feature with a different Browser Language selection [Twitter Link, Aug 27]).
Why it will probably be patched:
Surprised there's no post about it here already.
Only Hackernews article I could find (4 days ago):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49506338
Edit: It seems to matter a lot whether your network is deemed "spammy" or problematic by Google for the encrypted URLs to kick in, even if you're logged out. Funnily enough my google searches went back to normal a few hours after I posted this. So a logged out session might get the regular, unencrypted links if your IP network has a good rating on Google's end. Mine often runs into captchas and the like, so it makes sense why I'd be targeted by this new change.
Then again, I just tested on my mobile cellular on a logged out search, and I still have the goto's. Can't really control that.
Surprised nobody has mentioned Ecosia yet. Web searches there are responsible for planting 250,000,000 trees. I can’t think of a better justification for using a search engine.
Just a heads up, Ecosia relies on you clicking on Microsoft and Google provided ads for its revenue.
From there FAQ:
I just tried Ecosia again after a long while (I last tried it around sometime in early 2020/21) and it seems a lot nicer and better than before. I'll use it for a little bit then :$
Good on you for trying
I used Ecosia for a few months last year, but it really struggled with more niche topics and searches in Hungarian. Also it kept re-enabling the AI search every other day, no matter how many times I disabled it. So in the end I switched to noai.duckduckgo.
I love ecosia.
STOP USING GOOGLE PRODUCT A FFS THEY ARE SHIT.
They use Bing and google on the back end.
Sure, a lot of other search engines do. I believe ecosia is the one building their own index though.
Kagi ia my favorite. Finds what I actually need like its 08 again.
Stopped using them after being pestered by cloudflare garbage every 2nd visit despite having cookies enabled for it.
Gods forbid we be inconvenienced in the slightest.
Looks like they have a browser too. Anyone know if it's chromium?
It’s Chromium, according to Wikipedia.
Of course it is. I will never not be surprised by the overabundance of chromium based browsers. You’ve got 50:5 Chrome vs. Firefox/Swiftkit alternatives. It’s pathetic honestly.