How did the Ad Networks find my search? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by Tenderizer78@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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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?

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[-] Tenderizer78@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

        I have Freetube installed but I found no reason to really use it when I have this browser extension and adblock (though I don't have one enabled for YouTube so I have no idea why I'm not seeing ads). I can probably do what Remove YouTube Suggestions does with Tampermonkey or Violentmonkey anyway so I might switch.
Didn't realize Tampermonkey wasn't open source. I'll look into it when I can eventually be bothered.
I can't use a Passkey on my phone. GrapheneOS doesn't support passkeys.
Piracy isn't worth the hassle to me, though it's not like Crunchyroll has been much better lately.

[-] nkk@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago

If you want maximum privacy, Grayjay and Freetube don't link to accounts so Google doesn't know what you're doing (especially if you're on a VPN) but again, it's understandable if you don't feel that's worth it.

Ah got it, didn't realize you were using passkeys.

If you're willing to do a bit of setup, Stremio + RealDebrid ($40 a year) + Torrentio/AIOStreams is pretty much perfect to me (although if you watch a lot of super obscure shows maybe not the way to go as RealDebrid doesn't cache everything)

[-] Tenderizer78@lemmy.ml 2 points 17 hours ago

I'm not really interested in maximum privacy, at least right now. I'm slowly moving there though.

this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2025

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