Dear HN, I wrote a Firefox extension that strips out google links from adwords

<p><pre><code> Since it goes straight to your destination, Google cannot store data on your behavior. </code></pre> I think this is a very cool idea and does provide some level of privacy, but it shouldn't be overstated. Google still has your search history (arguably more sensitive than the actual search result clicked), and in many cases can back into your click behavior via Google Analytics/Adsense code which is embedded on many, many sites (unless you're scrubbing referrer data as well).

While I do understand what you're trying to do, I think this might do more harm than good for the advertisers who are paying for these ads. It will probably make it hard for them to track how well their different SEM campaigns are converting and ruin all of the analytics collected by both adwords and programs like google analytics. If the 'google-infested' link (as one person put it) somehow has the campaign tracking query parameters in it (I haven't really looked into it yet) It might be a good idea to keep it as part of the sanitized url so as not to mess with any of the hard work that the advertisers put into their campaigns.

My beef isn't really with their tracking of my links, but it's annoying to me to do a search and not be able to "right click &#62; Copy link location" on a search result. After installing your (otherwise great) plugin, I still get the google-infested link if I right click on it. Worse, the link stays google-infested even if I left-click on it afterwards. If you could fix this, this plugin would become as essential to me as AdBlock.

Why not just a greasemonkey plugin?

Does this then allow you to click on the ads at right without the advertisers paying for the click?<p>If so, advertisers will be pleased, Google will be pissed.

As an adwords user, this is crappy. I do not want free untraceable clicks, and I don't think people should screw Google over.<p>Just like adblock, I believe that if you don't like something, don't use it. Don't hack it around into something else and just leech the stuff you want. That's hypocritical and dishonest.<p>Does it just take you to the 'display url'? If so, it's also pretty pointless - most people can type.