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Starred by 5 users

Issue metadata

Status: WontFix
Owner: ----
Closed: Feb 2017
Cc:
Components:
EstimatedDays: ----
NextAction: ----
OS: Linux
Pri: 2
Type: Bug



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Chromium tries to prefetch page while typing in omnibar

Reported by legendm...@gmail.com, Oct 23 2016

Issue description

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:49.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/49.0

Example URL:

Steps to reproduce the problem:
1. start packet capture
2. type amazon.com in omnibox

What is the expected behavior?

What went wrong?
Chromium initiated a connection to ama-assn.org

I can't reliably recreate this issue. I guess this behavior might have to do with how I type in omnibox. Or this is part of some cloud feature to verify if a website is available?

Referer: https://www.google.com/\r\n seems to indicate this has to do with search feature.

Did this work before? N/A 

Chrome version: 54.0.2840.59 (Official Build) (64-bit)  Channel: stable
OS Version: Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS
Flash Version: Shockwave Flash 11.2 r202

Hypertext Transfer Protocol
    GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n
        [Expert Info (Chat/Sequence): GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n]
            [GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n]
            [Severity level: Chat]
            [Group: Sequence]
        Request Method: GET
        Request URI: /
        Request Version: HTTP/1.1
    Host: ama-assn.org\r\n
    Connection: keep-alive\r\n
    Upgrade-Insecure-Requests: 1\r\n
    User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/54.0.2840.59 Safari/537.36\r\n
    Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp,*/*;q=0.8\r\n
    Referer: https://www.google.com/\r\n
    Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, sdch\r\n
    Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8\r\n
    \r\n
    [Full request URI: http://ama-assn.org/]
    [HTTP request 1/1]
    [Response in frame: 11140]

Further testing shows Chromium does try to prefetch webpages in top search results. What are the privacy/security considerations for this feature? It does look like Chromium might load websites that has little to do with what the user intends to visit.
 

Comment 1 by woxxom@gmail.com, Oct 24 2016

It's what omnibox prerenderer has always been doing since it was implemented. For those who aren't concerned with privacy the feature is awesome. It also improves after the user repeats the input using the same sequence of characters: each time it results in a navigation to this particular site its weight in the predictor database is increased.
Labels: TE-NeedsTriageHelp
It would be desirable to make it clear what exactly "use a prediction service to load pages more quickly" does. I expect HTTPS google search queries while I type in omnibox, but HTTP GET to random websites while I type in the "address bar" is very invasive.

Comment 4 by mmenke@chromium.org, Oct 24 2016

Components: -Internals>Network UI>Settings
It affects a number of things that change over time, hence the ambiguous description.  It also controls things like preconnect and DNS prefetch.

The omnibox search option is "Use a prediction service to help complete searches and URLs typed in the address bar".

Defer to the settings team on whether the text should be updated, though given that what this cover has changed over time, not sure that's desirable.

Comment 5 by engedy@chromium.org, Oct 31 2016

Components: Privacy
"Use a prediction service to load pages more quickly" cannot be toggled in Chromium	58.0.3018.0 (Developer Build) (64-bit). It just sets itself to on instantly. Can move into 'off' position but instantly becomes 'on' again.

Is it a bug? or just left there for informational purposes?

Screenshot_2017-02-19_16-00-16.png
106 KB View Download
Oh wait, nevermind - it must be something I did in my current profile because with an empty profile it can be toggled to off!
For completion: if either uMatrix or uBlock Origin (extensions) are Enabled, then the "Use a prediction service to load pages more quickly" setting can't be toggled to off (it becomes on until both of these extensions are disabled) - reason unknown.

Sorry for the noise.

Comment 9 by woxxom@gmail.com, Feb 20 2017

uBlock/uMatrix override this option so you can toggle it in their dashboard (options).
Yes, it is actually set to false by uMatrix/uBlock, but the chromium UI sees it as true for some reason (bug).

Confirmed by: https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/issues/234#issuecomment-280928845

Thanks for replying, by the way.
Cheers!

Comment 11 by woxxom@gmail.com, Feb 20 2017

>chromium UI sees it as true for some reason (bug).

Indeed. Related:  issue 693301 ,  issue 693302 .
Damn nice wox*, thanks! Subscribbled :)
Status: WontFix (was: Unconfirmed)
If my understanding is correct, there is no bug here.  Please let me know if this is not the case so I can reopen
imo "Use a prediction service to load pages more quickly" should have clear documentations on what it does

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