research-article

You, the Web, and Your Device: Longitudinal Characterization of Browsing Habits

Authors:

Zied Ben Houidi,

Mohamed Lamine LamaliAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on the Web (TWEB), Volume 12, Issue 4

Article No.: 24, Pages 1 - 30

https://doi.org/10.1145/3231466

Published: 27 September 2018 Publication History

Abstract

Understanding how people interact with the web is key for a variety of applications, e.g., from the design of effective web pages to the definition of successful online marketing campaigns. Browsing behavior has been traditionally represented and studied by means of clickstreams, i.e., graphs whose vertices are web pages, and edges are the paths followed by users. Obtaining large and representative data to extract clickstreams is, however, challenging.

The evolution of the web questions whether browsing behavior is changing and, by consequence, whether properties of clickstreams are changing. This article presents a longitudinal study of clickstreams from 2013 to 2016. We evaluate an anonymized dataset of HTTP traces captured in a large ISP, where thousands of households are connected. We first propose a methodology to identify actual URLs requested by users from the massive set of requests automatically fired by browsers when rendering web pages. Then, we characterize web usage patterns and clickstreams, taking into account both the temporal evolution and the impact of the device used to explore the web. Our analyses precisely quantify various aspects of clickstreams and uncover interesting patterns, such as the typical short paths followed by people while navigating the web, the fast increasing trend in browsing from mobile devices, and the different roles of search engines and social networks in promoting content.

Finally, we contribute a dataset of anonymized clickstreams to the community to foster new studies.<sup;>1</sup;>

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Index Terms

You, the Web, and Your Device: Longitudinal Characterization of Browsing Habits
1. Networks
  1. Network performance evaluation
    1. Network measurement
  2. Network services
    1. Network monitoring

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on the Web

ACM Transactions on the Web Volume 12, Issue 4

November 2018

215 pages

ISSN:1559-1131

EISSN:1559-114X

DOI:10.1145/3281744

Editor:
Brian D. Davison
Lehigh University, USA

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2018 ACM.

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Publication History

Published: 27 September 2018

Accepted: 01 June 2018

Revised: 01 April 2018

Received: 01 May 2017

Published in TWEB Volume 12, Issue 4

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https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2023.3254913
Niakanlahiji AOrlowski SVahid AJafarian J(2023)Toward practical defense against traffic analysis attacks on encrypted DNS trafficComputers & Security10.1016/j.cose.2022.103001124(103001)Online publication date: Jan-2023
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2022.103001
Feng ZLiu RCao MZhu Y(2022)Flow-Based User Click Identification in Encrypted Web Traffic2022 IEEE Smartworld, Ubiquitous Intelligence & Computing, Scalable Computing & Communications, Digital Twin, Privacy Computing, Metaverse, Autonomous & Trusted Vehicles (SmartWorld/UIC/ScalCom/DigitalTwin/PriComp/Meta)10.1109/SmartWorld-UIC-ATC-ScalCom-DigitalTwin-PriComp-Metaverse56740.2022.00272(1882-1889)Online publication date: Dec-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/SmartWorld-UIC-ATC-ScalCom-DigitalTwin-PriComp-Metaverse56740.2022.00272
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