So you want to search on Google without sending those - evil? - cookies, and hopefully not ever have to deal with situations like this one? (Other links to that story here, here and here - or simply search Google for "User 4417749")
Then, if you use the Firefox browser, we have a Firefox extension that might help you out a bit.
Table of contents
If you don't know what a cookie is, start by reading this or this.
There's been a big deal of controversy around this cookies, and there are countless theories about why this cookie is being set/sent. Whether Google is using it or not, it is true that it could easily be used to group whatever searches you do under a unique ID.
So if you don't want Google to associate what you search to your Google account, or you simply, don't want them to be grouped as "user XYZ searches", the best thing you could do is to disable cookies associated to all of Google's domains.
Also, if you've set some search preferences, by not allowing Google cookies, you're left with the default preferences.
That means that if you're checking your GMail mail, and then wish to do a Google search, you'd need to go to your browser preferences, delete and disable cookies for the Google domains, do your search, and when you're done, relogin to your GMail account - and be careful not to do a new Google search without repeating the process!
Would anyone actually go through that trouble for every search they do?
You can see here a screenshot of the browser with the toolbar installed, right after having searched for the term "cookie":
Note the "Sign in" link on the top-right corner. Despite I was logged into my GMail account, after using the CFG.Search box Google didn't get any cookie from me and so rather than showing a "Sign off" button, it invited me to "Sign in". Yet, I could then go back to my GMail account and continue checking my email.
Also note that as mentioned earlier, Google saves and uses other cookies not used to identify the user. Those cookies are also not sent when using the toolbar's search box.
Basically, using the CFG.Search toolbar, no cookie is sent to Google whatsoever at the moment of executing the search.
Not only that, but because when you search Google using CFG.Search no cookie is being sent, Google thinks you really don't have any cookie set and tries to add/set a new GUID cookie, resetting in fact any previous GUID cookie you might have had. And for every CFG.Search you do, Google will try to reset the GUID cookie with a new one, making it a bit harder to group your searches around that ID should you later accidentally do a search directly from Google instead of from CFG.Search.
Note that some sites may not have all of the image/video/etc. sub-sites implemented. For instance, if you select google.gm as your default site and do a video search, you will get a "video.google.gm domain not found". If you run into that error, we suggest you go back to the default google.com. Similarly, not all locales will work on all sub-sites, although in this case you don't get an error but Google will default to English automatically.
Also note that the site and locale options only apply to Google searches, not Yahoo! or Amazon.
By the way, just to make it clear, CFG.Search has no Spyware or Adware of any type and does not save anything in your computer (except your site and locale preferences) or anywhere else. Zero, zip, nada! What would be the point of adding Spyware to a produt supposed to add privacy to your searches anyway?
The only thing that CFG.Search has, somewhat a bit out of the loop, is that the Amazon search contains an affiliate link in it (ours) but the search itself is "cookie free". There are no affiliate links of any type for Google or Yahoo! searches.
Ok, here's the thing. When you pull out the "Page Info" for your CFG.Search results page, or when you use virtually any of the addons and extensions that claim they'll display what cookies were sent, what these tools really do is: a) Check the domain you just visited. b) Go to where all your cookies are stored and see which ones would match the rule that'd make the browser send them to that server. c) Show you those cookies - whether they were sent or not.
That is, neither the Page Info nor any of these extensions were actually "sniffing" to see whether cookies were really sent. They asume - and rightfully so - that those cookies were sent because that's what the browser is supposed to do. Righfully so, until now, that is.
If you really really want to see with your own eyes that cookies are not sent when you use CFG.Search, and the "Sign in" clue mentioned up here didn't convince you, you could download a TCP/IP sniffer - preferably one than can display the captured packets in ASCII mode, so you can read what's being sent - and see for yourself.
You can get away with that by using the << and >> buttons in the toolbar:
The good part of this is that those requests do not get associated to the search term itself but to the retrieval of the thumbnails, and that's a good thing. The bad part of it is that those requests go along with a "Referer" field - and that referer is often the URL that contains your search term.
Video searches get a bit trickier, because in addition to the thumbnails, we've noticed that most video searches rather than displaying a single page with the results, they also open a framed page at the very top (usually with the URL http://video.google.com/accountheader?url=etc... ), and when that secondary call is made, cookies are also sent, and in fact, that little frame is used to show your login info, so despite you did a cookie-free search, you'll see your login info (if you were logged in to, say, GMail) right up there. We've only seen this kind of behaviour for Video searches.
Despite this inconvenience (that we have only seen when doing video and image searches), you're still avoiding sending cookies attached to the original search URL, so we believe that it is safe to say that, unless Google is really investigating you and trying to "get you" (something we believe Google has not done so far, at least not to the knowledge of the public), your video/image searches will not end up associated to you as an individual. In addition to that, every new search you do using CFG.Search resets your GUID cookie, so despite these secondary calls send your cookies to Google, they'll be getting a different GUID value for every new search - or even every page from the same search results - you make.
On the other hand, we see nothing wrong in limiting the information we pass on to these sites, if we so desire not to give more information than what's really necessary. However, the current "methods" to limit that information (not accepting any cookies whatsoever from these sites, etc) are too annoying to be considered a feasible option. And that's what encouraged us to develop CFG.Search. Well, that and the fun of developing a Firefox extension.
Having said that, CFG.Search doesn't give you 100% privacy when you search, mainly because it does not anonymize your IP address, but it allows you to search Google knowing that other than the IP and timestamp (something it is sent to every server of every web page you ever visit, anyway), nothing else is sent to Google. Well, nothing else except the search term you're searching for, of course (plus some general info that is always sent on HTTP calls, such as the browser you're using and other irrelevant stuff).
Oh, and if you got here right away without reading anything else, that's cool, but please do not report a bug or malfunction unless you've read this FAQ.
Of course, you are under no obligation. CFG.Search will always remain FREE and will never have ads, spyware, etc.
If you would like more information on how to send a donation with PayPal, or would like to make an instant donation right now, please click on the "PayPal Donate" graphic below:
Clicking on the PayPal button does not commit you to making a donation - you can still change your mind after clicking on the button.
If you are unable to support CFG.Search but still find it useful, you may just want to tell your friends about
CFG.Search.
And if for whatever reason you'd like to contact me, you can do so here but you'd first need an account in ZoomGroups. If you just want to leave a public comment, you can do it at the CFG.Search blog.