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You know when you search for something on Google and all the search results are actually redirection URLs before they take you to the actual website? For example searching for "Neowin" and the first result is "http//www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.neowin.net%2F". Is there some way to make Google (or Yahoo) not have that redirection URL and instead take me directly to "http//www.neowin.net"?

Google SSL Privacy Real Link Userscripts.org

And if you use Chrome import thease in your registry


Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome\ExtensionInstallSources]
"1"="http://userscripts.org/*"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Policies\Google\Chrome\ExtensionInstallSources]
"1"="http://userscripts.org/*"
[/CODE]

I've been using "Remove Google Redirects 1.0.1" on Chrome which recently stopped working for me.

It is really annoying because when you click on a link and then want to go back, it either takes you back to the redirect, or takes you to the page you were on before going to Google, so you have to go back twice and then go forward.

Right clicking and Copy Link Address gives you a strange URL not suitable for sharing.

Sometimes the redirect hangs, but going to the website directly by typing it in in that time goes to the page directly.

This is the one thing they have got wrong with Google Search. I don't know why they can't use Javascript for their tracking instead.

I've been using "Remove Google Redirects 1.0.1" on Chrome which recently stopped working for me.

It is really annoying because when you click on a link and then want to go back, it either takes you back to the redirect, or takes you to the page you were on before going to Google, so you have to go back twice and then go forward.

Ok after trying a few of them I decided to write my own. It was quite easy actually considering I've never written a Chrome extension before. If you don't trust the file, you can open the CRX file with WinZip to inspect the code which is less than 20 lines long.

SkipRedirects.zip

To download: Just download the zip file and extract to desktop. Inside "Chrome", click "Wrench", click "Tools", click "Extensions". Then drag the CRX file from the desktop to the extension page inside Chrome.

noob question but what do these redirects do?

The redirects are there for Google to track which links you've clicked on. When you click on a search result, instead of going to www.neowin.net you are taken to www.google.com/redirect?www.neowin.net and then Google will redirect you to www.neowin.net afterwards. It's another step in an otherwise straightforward step. It wastes time when you are on dial-up or your DNS server is slow.

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