(no subject)

[arethinn]

shatterstripes via kistaro: LiveJournal is altering (some) posted links via JavaScript to insert a redirecting "wrapper" -- for what tracking or ad-based purposes, we do not know. Also it seems inconsistent as to when it appears; comments suggest people using Firefox often didn't experience it, while IE seemed consistent, but others claimed to (I haven't seen it, myself).

edit: How to "opt out" (I'd rather call it "defeat this" since it's not a "click here to opt out" kind of thing, however un-advertised). BTW I have now seen it myself on Firefox with AdBlock, so don't think that combination will help (without adding blocking of the script).

Comments

[valkyriur.livejournal.com]

I haven't run into this (I use Chrome). Thank you for the warning. I'll keep a lookout

[arethinn]

Apparently it's only on certain target domains (but a bunch of them). I've edit this post to contain a link about how to get out of it; you might want to see it.

[valkyriur.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much! Just did it.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

A couple of years ago, when using my uncle's computer (and therefore, perforce IE) I noticed something similar happening to all links on all webpages I visited. Some surfer-helper or whatever he installed turned out to be responsible. I installed Firefox on his machine.

This link thing isn't happening to me on Firefox: I've got AdBlock, though I don't know if that affects the served code at all.

I guess it might not be LJ itself that's doing it, but I don't know enough about how such dynamic-content pages are generated and served to comment intelligently beyond this :-/ .

[arethinn]

Someone in comments claimed they got it even with Firefox+AdBlock, I think. I think the sample of people in this case is wide enough that it's unlikely all of them could have the same "surfer-helper" (if any at all) installed. Still, however one might avoid it, the disturbing thing is that it is being done at all, if it is.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

chipuni posted a fix to this here (http://chipuni.livejournal.com/651825.html). Along with some more information that made me change my stand from yesterday---and made me more than a little twitchy, to be honest. Thanks for the heads-up yesterday.

[arethinn]

[info]chipuni posted a fix to this here.

Linking to the same caffeinepuppy post I just linked to thanks to the tip from dancinglights, heh.