Direct and safe access to web sites

[Dave2002]

In days gone by, if I wanted to go to a web site, I would type something like http://iwanthis.site.com into an address box in a web browser.

Then it got to www.this.site.com in the address box.

Then people realised that it was often easier to search, so they'd use google, or altavista or lycos or some other similar tool to find and access web sites.

Then browsers incorporated search boxes into their interface, while some browsers (such as chrome) would do a search even for text in the address box.

Now most browsers will do some form of search, even if a valid URL is directly typed into the address box.

I, and perhaps many others, do not particularly want every access to a site I do to go via Google, Bing or any other search engine. Firstly, it slows things up, and secondly I don't really want the details of every search I do to go to these sites. If I'm doing a search I'll use a search engine of my choice, otherwise I'd prefer to go straight to the site.

I suppose I could keep a file of IP numbers for each site I have visited, but that might present other problems.

Is there a way of ensuring that if I know the specific web address of a site I can access it via a browser, without initiating a search on any of the common (or even less common) search engine sites?

Search engines do a great job where needed, but I think that many of us are exposing too much of ourselves to the search engines when it is not strictly necessary.

[Frances_iom]

what did you expect with Chrome - Google is there to track your every click you'll be wanting privacy next - switch to say Firefox or something like Iceweasel in Debian (there are several that avoid commercial tracking available based on opensource Firefox)

[Dave2002]

what did you expect with Chrome - Google is there to track your every click you'll be wanting privacy next - switch to say Firefox or something like Iceweasel in Debian (there are several that avoid commercial tracking available based on opensource Firefox)

I agree, but I think the same behaviour is now incorporated into many other browsers, including Firefox. I want to be sure that this doesn't happen - if that's possible nowadays. I didn't say I was using Chrome anyway - I usually prefer Firefox, though that has, for me, an irritating bug at present, and Waterfox which I tried recently doesn't seem any better.

[Don Petter]

I, and perhaps many others, do not particularly want every access to a site I do to go via Google, Bing or any other search engine. Firstly, it slows things up, and secondly I don't really want the details of every search I do to go to these sites. If I'm doing a search I'll use a search engine of my choice, otherwise I'd prefer to go straight to the site.

I suppose I could keep a file of IP numbers for each site I have visited, but that might present other problems.

Is there a way of ensuring that if I know the specific web address of a site I can access it via a browser, without initiating a search on any of the common (or even less common) search engine sites?

Search engines do a great job where needed, but I think that many of us are exposing too much of ourselves to the search engines when it is not strictly necessary.

I guess you can avoid the actual search engine by typing the URL into Windows Explorer, and then it will open the site directly in your default browser, but then the latter will still know where you've been.

[Dave2002]

I guess you can avoid the actual search engine by typing the URL into Windows Explorer, and then it will open the site directly in your default browser, but then the latter will still know where you've been.

Maybe we just have to accept that whatever we do, someone will know. Unless we examine the code in all the browsers we use, we can't be sure that they don't forward the URLs to one or more 3rd party sites, and indeed in many cases we can be more or less certain that that's exactly what they'll do. Trouble with these things is that a lot boils down to trust, and where the Internet and software is concerned I'm getting less and less trusting by the day.

[MrGongGong]

Maybe we just have to accept that whatever we do, someone will know. Unless we examine the code in all the browsers we use, we can't be sure that they don't forward the URLs to one or more 3rd party sites, and indeed in many cases we can be more or less certain that that's exactly what they'll do. Trouble with these things is that a lot boils down to trust, and where the Internet and software is concerned I'm getting less and less trusting by the day.

Of course they will.
As long as you are aware that everything on the internet is public then there really isn't a huge problem.

(what's "windows explorer" and can I run it on my Atari 1040? )

[amcluesent]

I only know Chrome, but in the "Privacy" section, deselect the "Use a prediction service to help complete searches and URLs typed in the address bar" checkbox.

After that, you can type anything into the omnibox and if the URL is wrong you'll just get a 'page not available' when the domain name can't be found.