This is the working log for Tracker Radar Collector. It records the decisions and checks specific to that page; dataset-wide extraction caveats live on the corpus provenance page. It deliberately has no discussion block: comments belong on the content page.

The existing Comparison of Crawling Libraries page already promised a red link to this exact page and acts as the crawler index. I created this new focused subpage rather than broadening the index or duplicating OpenWPM: the question here is TRC's capture schema and its path into Tracker Radar, while the neighbours compare crawler families and OpenWPM's Firefox instrumentation. No parent-page edit was needed.

The following were run from /workspace/artifacts/wiki unless an absolute path is shown. The first command is an orientation query only; its free-text table was not pasted into the page.

node scripts/sitemap.mjs
node /workspace/publications_dataset/scripts/site_queries.mjs --run /workspace/publications_dataset/data/extract/run1 --page crawlers --format wiki
node scripts/report_tracker_radar_collector.mjs

The report's exact populations are:

The page says “10 papers in the 1,120-paper CRAWLED population,” not “10 of 5,859,” because the latter would silently use the wrong population. The all-paper 5,859 and broad 21/11 figures are stated only with the all-paper boundary definition.

The report uses the case-insensitive pattern tracker[\\s-]?radar[\\s-]?collector. It permits a DuckDuckGo prefix and a (TRC) suffix because the match is on the full tool name, then restricts the population to the two automation categories and used/produced statuses. This is deliberately narrower than tracker[- ]radar.

The four raw strings mapped to the Collector are:

• DuckDuckGo Tracker Radar Collector — 4 tuples
• Tracker Radar Collector — 4 tuples
• DuckDuckGo tracker-radar-collector — 1 tuple
• Tracker Radar Collector (TRC) — 1 tuple

The complete excluded radar-name residue printed by the script is:

  8  "DuckDuckGo Tracker Radar"
  1  "DuckDuckGo Tracker Radar Wiki"
  1  "Tracker Radar"
  1  "Tracker Radar Entity List"
  1  "Tracker Radar Entity Map"

The raw audit therefore has 9 distinct radar strings, 4 mapped Collector strings and 5 excluded strings. The report prints this residue so a later alias change cannot silently turn the dataset or entity map into a crawler count.

The following is the output of node scripts/report_tracker_radar_collector.mjs from the run above, copied without editing. It is the audit trail for every number on the content page.

corpus: 5859 papers, 7 venues, 2010–2026
population CRAWLED: 1120 papers (crawlConfig or automated-web-crawl study type)
population TRC: 10 papers with a used/produced automation-tool tuple naming the Collector
generated by scripts/report_tracker_radar_collector.mjs
 
=== A. Population and the Collector/dataset boundary ===
 
Population                        Papers  Definition
--------------------------------  ------  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRC crawler users                 10      tools[].name matches Tracker Radar Collector; automation category; used/produced
TRC crawler users inside CRAWLED  10      same query ∩ CRAWLED (1120)
OpenWPM users inside CRAWLED      58      same automation-category/used-or-produced rule; OpenWPM fold
Any Tracker Radar tool name       21      broad radar name match, including dataset/entity/wiki names
Radar names excluded from TRC     11      any radar name but no Collector automation tuple
The page uses the first row for the Collector adoption count. The broad Tracker Radar rows are a boundary check, not a second crawler count.
 
=== B. Year-by-year use ===
 
Year   Crawling papers  TRC users  Share of that year’s crawling papers
-----  ---------------  ---------  ------------------------------------
2021   75               1          1.3%
2022   110              1          0.9%
2023   125              1          0.8%
2024   110              3          2.7%
2025*  129              3          2.3%
2026*  69               1          1.4%
* 2025–2026 are provisional venue-years: CCS/IMC 2026 have not been held, and IEEE S&P/WWW 2026 are incompletely selected.
Across the complete 2021–2024 window: 6 TRC users; in the provisional 2025–2026 window: 4.
 
=== C. Folded names and unmapped residue ===
 
Fold rule: case-insensitive `tracker[- ]radar[- ]collector`, after allowing DuckDuckGo as a vendor prefix and `(TRC)` as a suffix; only automation categories and used/produced tuples enter the TRC population. Counts below are tuples for residue auditing, never paper percentages.
Raw tool string folded to Tracker Radar Collector  Tuples
-------------------------------------------------  ------
"DuckDuckGo Tracker Radar Collector"               4
"Tracker Radar Collector"                          4
"DuckDuckGo tracker-radar-collector"               1
"Tracker Radar Collector (TRC)"                    1
Excluded radar-name residue (printed in full):
  8  "DuckDuckGo Tracker Radar"
  1  "DuckDuckGo Tracker Radar Wiki"
  1  "Tracker Radar"
  1  "Tracker Radar Entity List"
  1  "Tracker Radar Entity Map"
Radar-name audit: 9 distinct strings; Collector fold mapped 4; excluded residue 5.
 
=== D. Papers in the TRC population ===
 
Year  Paper key                                                                                    Tool string(s)                                           Evidence quote(s)
----  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  -------------------------------------------------------  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2021  PETS/2021/the-cname-of-the-game-large-scale-analysis-of-dns-based-tracking-evasion           DuckDuckGo Tracker Radar Collector [crawler-framework]   "We built our crawler by modifying the DuckDuckGo Tracker Radar Collector [21], a Puppeteer-based crawler that uses the Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP)."
2022  USENIX/2022/leaky-forms-a-study-of-email-and-password-exfiltration-before-form-submission    Tracker Radar Collector [crawler-framework]              "We develop an interactive, instrumented crawler based on DuckDuckGo's Tracker Radar Collector"
2023  USENIX/2023/is-your-wallet-snitching-on-you-an-analysis-on-the-privacy-implications-of-web3  DuckDuckGo Tracker Radar Collector [crawler-framework]   "We use DuckDuckGo's Tracker Radar Collector (TRC) to crawl popular websites and measure their behavior."
2024  IEEE-SP/2024/targeted-and-troublesome-tracking-and-advertising-on-childrens-websites         Tracker Radar Collector [crawler-framework]              "we extended Tracker Radar Collector (TRC) [93]. TRC is a Puppeteer-based [94] web crawler"
2024  PETS/2024/johnny-still-cant-opt-out-assessing-the-iab-ccpa-compliance-framework              DuckDuckGo Tracker Radar Collector [browser-automation]  "We used code from DuckDuckGo's Tracker Radar Collector (TRC) that allowed us to set non-invasive breakpoints on the DOM cookie methods and record the JavaScript stack traces"
2024  WWW/2024/the-double-edged-sword-identifying-authentication-pages-and-their-fingerprinting    Tracker Radar Collector [crawler-framework]              "Our web crawler is a fork of Tracker Radar Collector (TRC), a crawler created by DuckDuckGo."
2025  IMC/2025/canvassing-the-fingerprinters-characterizing-canvas-fingerprinting-use-across-th    DuckDuckGo Tracker Radar Collector [crawler-framework]   "We modified DuckDuckGo's Tracker Radar Collector [22], a Puppeteer-based Web crawler."
2025  PETS/2025/referrer-policy-implementation-and-circumvention                                   Tracker Radar Collector [crawler-framework]              "We extended the open-source crawler Tracker Radar Collector (TRC) [32]."
2025  PETS/2025/sheeps-clothing-wolfish-intent-automated-detection-and-evaluation-of-problematic   DuckDuckGo tracker-radar-collector [crawler-framework]   "To collect ads, we utilized the DuckDuckGo tracker-radar-collector framework, built on the Puppeteer web crawler."
2026  USENIX/2026/bridges-to-self-silent-web-to-app-tracking-on-mobile-via-localhost               Tracker Radar Collector (TRC) [crawler-framework]        "We perform web crawls using a customized version of DuckDuckGo's Tracker Radar Collector (TRC), an opensource Puppeteer-based crawler equipped with anti-bot measures"
 
=== E. Evidence quote checks ===
 
10-word  PETS/2021/the-cname-of-the-game-large-scale-analysis-of-dns-based-tracking-evasion  /workspace/publications_dataset/data/fulltext/2021/PETS/the-cname-of-the-game-large-scale-analysis-of-dns-based-tracking-evasion/paper.cols.txt
  "We built our crawler by modifying the DuckDuckGo Tracker Radar Collector [21], a Puppeteer-based crawler that uses the Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP)."
7-word-compact  USENIX/2022/leaky-forms-a-study-of-email-and-password-exfiltration-before-form-submission  /workspace/publications_dataset/data/fulltext/2022/USENIX/leaky-forms-a-study-of-email-and-password-exfiltration-before-form-submission/paper.cols.txt
  "We develop an interactive, instrumented crawler based on DuckDuckGo's Tracker Radar Collector"
8-word-compact  USENIX/2023/is-your-wallet-snitching-on-you-an-analysis-on-the-privacy-implications-of-web3  /workspace/publications_dataset/data/fulltext/2023/USENIX/is-your-wallet-snitching-on-you-an-analysis-on-the-privacy-implications-of-web3/paper.cols.txt
  "We use DuckDuckGo's Tracker Radar Collector (TRC) to crawl popular websites and measure their behavior."
exact  IEEE-SP/2024/targeted-and-troublesome-tracking-and-advertising-on-childrens-websites  /workspace/publications_dataset/data/fulltext/2024/IEEE-SP/targeted-and-troublesome-tracking-and-advertising-on-childrens-websites/paper.cols.txt
  "we extended Tracker Radar Collector (TRC) [93]. TRC is a Puppeteer-based [94] web crawler"
10-word-compact  PETS/2024/johnny-still-cant-opt-out-assessing-the-iab-ccpa-compliance-framework  /workspace/publications_dataset/data/fulltext/2024/PETS/johnny-still-cant-opt-out-assessing-the-iab-ccpa-compliance-framework/paper.cols.txt
  "We used code from DuckDuckGo's Tracker Radar Collector (TRC) that allowed us to set non-invasive breakpoints on the DOM cookie methods and record the JavaScript stack traces"
10-word  WWW/2024/the-double-edged-sword-identifying-authentication-pages-and-their-fingerprinting  /workspace/publications_dataset/data/fulltext/2024/WWW/the-double-edged-sword-identifying-authentication-pages-and-their-fingerprinting/paper.cols.txt
  "Our web crawler is a fork of Tracker Radar Collector (TRC), a crawler created by DuckDuckGo."
exact  IMC/2025/canvassing-the-fingerprinters-characterizing-canvas-fingerprinting-use-across-th  /workspace/publications_dataset/data/fulltext/2025/IMC/canvassing-the-fingerprinters-characterizing-canvas-fingerprinting-use-across-th/paper.cols.txt
  "We modified DuckDuckGo's Tracker Radar Collector [22], a Puppeteer-based Web crawler."
9-word-compact  PETS/2025/referrer-policy-implementation-and-circumvention  /workspace/publications_dataset/data/fulltext/2025/PETS/referrer-policy-implementation-and-circumvention/paper.cols.txt
  "We extended the open-source crawler Tracker Radar Collector (TRC) [32]."
10-word-compact  PETS/2025/sheeps-clothing-wolfish-intent-automated-detection-and-evaluation-of-problematic  /workspace/publications_dataset/data/fulltext/2025/PETS/sheeps-clothing-wolfish-intent-automated-detection-and-evaluation-of-problematic/paper.cols.txt
  "To collect ads, we utilized the DuckDuckGo tracker-radar-collector framework, built on the Puppeteer web crawler."
10-word-compact  USENIX/2026/bridges-to-self-silent-web-to-app-tracking-on-mobile-via-localhost  /workspace/publications_dataset/data/fulltext/2026/USENIX/bridges-to-self-silent-web-to-app-tracking-on-mobile-via-localhost/paper.cols.txt
  "We perform web crawls using a customized version of DuckDuckGo's Tracker Radar Collector (TRC), an opensource Puppeteer-based crawler equipped with anti-bot measures"
Quote checks: 2 exact, 8 partial (longest 5–10 word run), 0 not located, 10 TRC tool tuples checked.
 
=== F. Current-tool interpretation ===
 
The corpus identifies TRC users in 2021–2026. The complete 2021–2024 count is historical evidence; the 2025–2026 count is a provisional current-use signal, not a prevalence estimate for the field.
No query here claims that TRC supersedes OpenWPM. The repositories were checked separately for current maintenance and the page compares capture surfaces rather than ranking one as a standard.

The script's 10 evidence tuples were checked against the corresponding paper.cols.txt files under /workspace/publications_dataset/data/fulltext/<year>/<venue>/<slug>/. Two quotes matched after whitespace normalization; eight matched as a 5–10-word run after compacting column/page-break punctuation. The partial status is a repaired-column-layout artifact, not an unsupported citation: the surrounding sentence in each source states the Collector use. No quote was unlocatable. The exact result is 2 exact, 8 partial, 0 not located, 10 tuples checked.

The checked papers and the measurement detail used on the page are:

The report output above is the primary quote log; no paper claim was added from a free-text tool tuple without a source quote.

The external pass used primary DuckDuckGo repositories only. Each was fetched/read on 2026-08-14 and pinned below by the main-branch commit recorded in the bibliography. Claims about the output schema come from source files, not a README summary alone.

Rejected during the external pass:

• SEO “best scraper” and “top web crawler” listicles: no source-level schema or Tracker Radar provenance, so they were not used for architecture, currency or recommendations.
• Unverified vendor summaries and search-result snippets: useful for discovery at most, but not primary evidence for a field or a current maintenance claim.
• A claim that TRC is the industry or research standard: rejected because the repositories show an active project, while the corpus has no matched comparison and only 10 identified research users under the narrow query.

• The corpus contains no formal TRC paper and no same-sample, same-browser, same-question comparison of TRC with OpenWPM or plain Playwright. The page does not rank accuracy, speed, coverage or “best” tool.
• The 10/1,120 figure is adoption in seven selected venues under an extraction query, not field prevalence, commercial usage or the share of all web measurement.
• The 2025–2026 signal is provisional. It cannot support a complete end-of-year trend, especially for unheld or under-selected venue-years.
• The public repositories document the pipeline and current source, but do not establish that every production Tracker Radar release used the public defaults or that the current schema is stable across commits.
• The page does not infer cookie values, cookie set timing or request bodies from TRC's default output. The default CookieCollector is a final jar snapshot and the default request record has no raw bodies.
• No independent benchmark was run. The content page's comparison is a source/schema comparison and a warning about denominators and capture surfaces.

• I created a new page because the sitemap/parent index already names this exact missing page, and the topic has a distinct implementation/data-pipeline question. I did not broaden or overwrite the OpenWPM page.
• I counted only crawler-framework/browser-automation tuples marked used/produced. “Tracker Radar Entity Map” and similar names remain printed residue, not silent exclusions.
• I describe TRC as current/available as of the 2026-08-14 repository check, but describe 2021–2024 use as historical and 2025–2026 use as a provisional signal. I did not call older OpenWPM-style methods superseded: the evidence shows different capture surfaces, not replacement.
• I used paper-level counts for every published adoption figure. Raw tuple counts appear only in the provenance audit, where they expose name normalization.
• I retained the broad 21 and excluded 11 only as a boundary check. Publishing 21 as TRC adoption would have conflated a dataset and entity map with a crawler.

The requested focused review categories were executed as checks by the primary run because no Agent/subagent capability was exposed in this environment. Findings and disposition:

No credential, private crawl, raw cookie value or response body was exposed. The metadata schema's possible hostname/username fields are called out for redaction; no such values were published.

cd /workspace/artifacts/wiki
node scripts/report_tracker_radar_collector.mjs

The report is deterministic against the mounted run1 extraction. If the corpus changes, refresh the output, rerun the quote checks and update this log before changing a figure on the content page.