.dct in behind-the-scene log while searching in Google

[castor-troy]

I enabled "Disable hyperlink auditing/beacon" in uBlock.
I did a search in Google. Did not click any links from the search.

Saw and entry that ended with https://www.google.com/..../......dct in the ublock behind-the-scene logger.
(I replaced some text in the above request with period to protect my privacy here)

That request was not blocked by ublock. Is that a beacon or a ping?
Aren't it supposed to be blocked?

I can't provide any screenshots right now, but if you want, I can do it a bit later.

uBlock version 0.9.8.4

[gorhill]

Give details please, exact URL, I rather avoid guessing in vain how to reproduce.

[luxoflux]

You'll have to provide more information. What browser are you on? How have you configured behind-the-scenes filtering? At least provide a screenshot of the logger and the request which is not being blocked. That URL tells us nothing, I'm sure you can show us more and still anonymize it better than that.

[gorhill]

I just confirmed that the hyperlink auditing requests are blocked, using the steps outlined in the release notes. The ping-to requests did not have dct at the end. In uBlock/Chromium, they are reported as object because of a Chromium bug which force uBlock to remap all other requests into object requests.

This can be confirmed using the Network pane in the dev console. Check "Preserve log". Then click on a result link to force an hyperlink auditing request, and if hyperlink auditing requests are not disabled in uBlock, it will appear in the Network pane, and this can be confirm from the Content-Type header in request headers: text/ping -- there are also a ping-to header.

So you can all check for yourself, reopen if you confirm with exact steps that text/ping requests are fired despite hyperlink auditing being disable. I checked that it works and I have no reason to believe it doesn't

[castor-troy]

I am not sure whether it's a ping or a web beacon or whatever. It's a behind the scene request. And I am also not sure whether it is supposed to be block. Wanted to know about it. Here are the screen shots attached.

I am on Windows 7 with Chromium 45.0.2421.0. My default search is disconnect.me.

In this case, I opened Google manually and did a search. I did not click on any of the result link.

[gorhill]

Only the request headers can tell for sure whether something is an hyperlink auditing. In any case, this just look like a normal request to me, from where it originates I don't know. Could be one of your extensions. I don't get this kind of request on my side.

[seanrand]

For the record, these requests are probably related to Google Instant (as you type) results to preload the results page.

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Content-Type: application/x-sdch-dictionary

Shared Dictionary Compression over HTTP

[castor-troy]

Thanks @seanrand But Javascript is blocked using uBlock on Google. Can Google Instant work without Javascript?

[gorhill]

But Javascript is blocked using uBlock on Google

It's a behind-the-scene request, it's the browser making that request, not the page on which javascript is blocked.

[castor-troy]

OK. I just checked with Firefox Beta 39 and I can't see any .dct requests. It seems to be happening only on Chromium. May be the browser is sending a behind-the-scene when Google based websites are loaded. And also, I blocked Google on behind-the-scene request in uMatrix, and is promptly blocked. So, all's fine except that I have more doubts about Google protecting my privacy.