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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How old is that game? Are there other people in your demographic who also play the game, and then searched for the same thing?
September 2025
It’s duckduckgo. Search duckduckgo.com with the term “restaurants near me.” You’ll often get responses that are close to your IP location.
That couldn’t happen unless DDG passes your IP address on to Bing. It’s possible they censor part of the IP and only pass part of it to Bing, but probably not.
(Go ahead! Try it!)
Since Bing sells to data brokers, data brokers know your IP is linked to a search for rambutan, even without fingerprinting your browser.
I’m not calling duckduckgo.com a honeypot… I’m also not calling it not a honeypot. But it knows too much for something supposedly private.
Any closed source firefox extension that has access to the browser display could be parsing the texts and selling it and your IP and other identifiers to data brokers. It’s part of how these extensions are profitable.
Cloudflare also does highly advanced fingerprinting and has a script called cloudflare insights, so it seems likely that any cloudflare activity is generating marketing data.
Did you click on any search results?
I found that the Firefox Browser history is often incomplete.
As far as I can remember, only the Wikipedia one.
Any extension could leak this information as well.
Is your default engine something other then the mentioned search engines? The search suggestion feature leaks information too.
I had removed all but Duckduckgo and Startpage from my browser.
My browser extensions are a good angle. If they’re selling my data to fund themselves that’d explain some things.
Have you considered confirmation bias?
It’s rambutan season and you saw an ad for rambutans. You haven’t mentioned that seeing the ad was weird so I gotta assume you see other ads they’re just not related to something that you searched for recently or something you recognize as being related to something you searched for recently.
I don’t see many ads, and the ads I do see are never food items. I think this canned rambutan was the first food ad I’ve seen in years.
I can’t even fathom this being a coincidence.
Well, without a VPN your ISP sees every site you enter. I wasn’t aware they might be selling that data for targeted ads, but it makes sense, why wouldn’t them?
The ISP shouldn’t even see the search term given basically everything on the internet uses https.
The ISP will see the domain names of the pages you visit if you use their DNS or some other unencrypted DNS but those are unlikely to contain the search term.
Looking it up my ISP isn’t exactly trustworthy, but there have been no clear allegations. I’d say it’s the most likely cause if not my Firefox extensions.
EDIT: I just got another theory, Cloudflare, I’ll add it to the list.
If you’re really crazy about your privacy I’d recommend getting rid of any extensions you don’t 100% need (keep ublock origin though) as not only can they stalk you themselves but it can also help websites fingerprint you. Keeping your extensions to a minimum will help you blend in with the crowd, especially if you use a hardened browser like LibreWolf and/or Mullvad Browser
I use AdGuard rather than uBlock Origin for adblocking, because it allows me to opt-in and only block ads when they are aggressive enough to be annoying. But I’ve not been trying to minimize fingerprinting. The issue is just that everything I used in this instance came with either a tacit or explicit promise not to track me and I don’t know which is lying.
Other extensions I use are:
- Remove YouTube Suggestions
- 10ten Japanese Reader (just now disabled)
- Tampermonkey
- Proton Pass (because my government services require 2FA, but only offer an official government app that uses the play integrity API, or a Passkey which is only natively supported on Windows or Mac)
- Time Tracker - Web Habit Builder
- Improve Crunchyroll (which seems to have stopped Crunchyroll from forcefully dropping my resolution to 144p).
- SteamDB (just now disabled)
I’ve never used AdGuard but you can customize uBlock Origin to fit your needs and block specific things for specific websites. uBlock Origin is commonly used as a default in hardened browsers which would help you fit in with the crowd even more (although I realize you said you weren’t going for anti-fingerprinting, just something to consider)
- I switched to using Grayjay Desktop rather than my browser for YouTube
- If you need a userscript manager, Violentmonkey is an open source alternative
- Proton Pass has an app, yes less convenient without the autofill but better for privacy not to have the extension
- Personally, I would just sail the seven seas
- 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.
- 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)
I’m not really interested in maximum privacy, at least right now. I’m slowly moving there though.
Do any extensions have permission to view your browsing data? You can check by opening the extension manager, clicking the extension and clicking the ‘permissions and data’ tab. I would suspect 5 and 6 the most, 1 might be suspect too. Those extensions by nature would need such permissions to some extent.
AdGuard, ProtonPass, TamperMonkey, Time Tracker, and 10ten have those permissions. The others don’t. I don’t think any of these extensions would be able to function without these permissions.
I don’t see ads but if I were to, and despite all my precautions some would be on topic based on my past behavior I would methodically dissect to find out the leak. Namely I would try to automate the process :
- identify a place showing ads
- take an action, e.g. search or browser, on a verifiable unique topic (in order to prevent from generic suggestions, e.g medication during flu season)
- verify if the ads become relevant
- enable/disable any of the tools used, repeat
Out of what you say, probably cloudflare or incomplete history. Have a great day!
one of the sites you looked at while looking up rambutan? no vpn too, if a page you looked at was served ads by an ad provider they could track you with your ip, as well as assosciating you with a unique fingerprint since you dont have fingerprinting protection. if you only used wikipedia, there is a second rambutan season in some places from november to january, so its possible that they (the rambutan or fruit processing and agricultural industry) are just trying to pick up sales ahead of the season.
if you have sus extensions too.
