Since the Tor Browser recently replaced Startpage to Disconnect as the default search engine on the Tor Browser homepage, the old Startpage submission URL and POST parameters have also since changed.
Currently the Whonix Welcome Page is sending an old unique search fingerprint that is no longer in use to Startpage.
This can be confirmed by looking at the Request URL and the Params in the Network Monitor of Tor Browser’s Developer Tools as you submit such queries.
Here is the fix for the Whonix Welcome Page HTML source code…
This will make the search query to Startpage now be the exact same as searches submitted via the current upper-right search bar of Tor Browser, so that they look no different and can’t be profiled as coming from Whonix Welcome Page.
Edit by Patrick:
extended title ’ / removed Search Box’
GitHub - Whonix/whonix-welcome-page: https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Imprint has no maintainer anymore. I think the safest path for the future would be to remove the search box. Keeping up with what The Tor Project changes to next seems hard anyhow. Could you send a pull request or provide the changes required for that please?
If removing Startpage search, it would also make sense to remove the redundant linking of the logo to the Whonix Welcome Page, since all the links already open in new windows.
To do that, also make this one line change in whonix.html:
Removed search box due to fingerprinting issues due to outdated, Whonix specific POST parameters.
The Tor Project changed away from startpage.com.
(Old Startpage submission URL and POST parameters have also since changed.)
Thanks to unconventional for reporting this issue and explaining how to disable the search box.
https://www.whonix.org/forum/index.php/topic,1564.0.html