bug#53281: 29.0.50; wishlist: eww should handle Referrer better

bug#53281: 29.0.50; wishlist: eww should handle Referrer better

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Currently eww handles Referrer inconsistently, I think?  (I haven't
actually looked at the code.)  I think it does send over Referrer when
doing normal clicks, but it doesn't do that when fetching images.

By default, eww should send over referrer on all requests -- if they
are "same site" requests.  (Some sites refuse to work if they don't get
the expected referrer.)  But eww should not (by default) do Referrer
when doing cross-site requests (for privacy reasons).

And there should be a way to customise this behaviour -- for instance,
to always send Referrer.


In GNU Emacs 29.0.50 (build 66, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.31, cairo version 1.16.0)
 of 2022-01-15 built on xo
Repository revision: 7651f044e26d5139d7140e0c4fd052893ef422d7
Repository branch: master
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.12013000
System Description: Debian GNU/Linux bookworm/sid


-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#53281: 29.0.50; wishlist: eww should handle Referrer better

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> Currently eww handles Referrer inconsistently, I think?  (I haven't
> actually looked at the code.)  I think it does send over Referrer when
> doing normal clicks, but it doesn't do that when fetching images.

No, it seems to do everything properly here (except when hitting `g' in
the eww buffer -- it sends over a referer then too, but I don't really
think we care).

It punts all this to url-lastloc-privacy-level, which allows the user to
customise all this, so there's nothing to do here, and I'm closing this
bug report.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#53281: 29.0.50; wishlist: eww should handle Referrer better

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

Browsers are "supposed to" provide the referrer field "correctly", but
that's not a good thing to do.  The effect is to give web sites
avoidable information about users' browsinge habits.  Thus, it is
better to do what Icecat does.

I think that Icecat gives a "correct" referrer field when you navigate
between pages in the same site, but gives a fake value when navigating
between sites.  I think the fake value may be the same site that you've
navigated to.

I think EWW should do what Icecat does.


-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

bug#53281: 29.0.50; wishlist: eww should handle Referrer better

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> I think EWW should do what Icecat does.

It does.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no