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.
• I must’ve forgotten a mention of it elsewhere?

Any guesses as to where the weak link is?