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No need to remove the URL tracking parameters manually. 🥳

Firefox copy link without site tracking

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[-] YtA4QCam2A9j7EfTgHrH@infosec.pub 199 points 7 months ago

They should make this the default.

[-] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 152 points 7 months ago

Or a setting that makes it the default.

I don't like any software I use to destroy data (even tracking data) without my say so.

[-] faintwhenfree@lemmus.org 47 points 7 months ago

Hmm, I agree with you 100%, but power of defaults is how big companies get average consumers. Maybe Firefox should make it default with a setting to turn it on?

A setting titled "allow copying of tracking data", a lot of people won't allow.

Fight fire with fire.

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[-] Contend6248@feddit.de 9 points 7 months ago

Opt-out then, the majority won't care

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[-] theo@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

If you wanted to do this and make it default, I believe you should be able to do so using userChrome.css. You won't be able to change the text, but you can remove the old menu item.

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[-] hiramfromthechi@lemmy.world 30 points 7 months ago

Or at least the option to make it the default. I could see some situations where someone may want to test a link with non-identifying parameters (like identifying the campaign source), and not wanting to have that stripped from the URL by default.

But I get you, from a consumer perspective I'd also want it as my default.

In the meantime, there's ClearURLs or uBlock Origin with filter lists.

[-] meldrik@lemmy.wtf 7 points 7 months ago

Doesn’t it just clean up the link or does Firefox actually know which part of the link to remove?

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[-] corbin@infosec.pub 6 points 7 months ago

It’s not the default because it can break links sometimes, like links that have authentication details in the parameters.

[-] bitwolf@lemmy.one 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

There's an addon I use for the Android version that does this by default.

It does miss some queryparams though but it dramatically reduces the URL size for the big offending sites.

[-] akilou@sh.itjust.works 4 points 7 months ago

But default is putting your cursor in the address bar and hitting ctrl-c. How would Firefox clean it like that?

[-] Euphoma@lemmy.ml 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

If it removes the tracking from the link before the page loads, it could work. So it would already be clean when you copy it.

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[-] Transcendant@lemmy.world 57 points 7 months ago

Firefox user for many, many, many years. I tried chrome once and was dismayed at how sluggish it was, hogging ram & cpu.

FF just gets better and better with every update. I'm amazed that more people aren't using it.

[-] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 6 points 7 months ago

At my school, firefox on the computers are not updated at all so it's using the very old firefox. Even then, it's not that slow. Now the current update is way more modern but it does have the weird stuff like pocket and very weird advertisements bookmarked on the front page. You'll get a much better experience after you do all the adjustments of removing everything and installing the proper extensions, maybe a little arkenfox too.

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[-] zkfcfbzr@lemmy.world 48 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Here's an amazon link both without and with that feature being used, for comparison. (The tracking one was created in incognito mode, because I don't know what sort of things it might reveal about me otherwise)

https://www.amazon.com/Bentgo%C2%AE-Pop-Bento-Style-Compartments-Sustainable/dp/B0B3CLN8PX/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=2B470&content-id=amzn1.sym.87cc8b65-1eb6-4676-be85-d0235c8cc1b4&pf_rd_p=87cc8b65-1eb6-4676-be85-d0235c8cc1b4&pf_rd_r=Z6KPA93RVDCTHA2HFQM7&pd_rd_wg=o2LTo&pd_rd_r=fef55702-5392-47a4-a5d2-8a7951d1229b&ref_=pd_gw_dealz_cm&th=1

https://www.amazon.com/Bentgo%C2%AE-Pop-Bento-Style-Compartments-Sustainable/dp/B0B3CLN8PX/?_encoding=UTF8&ref_=pd_gw_dealz_cm&th=1

What do the parts it left on do? The encoding is innocuous enough but I don't know what it's doing with ref or th. I usually sanitize links myself and I'd have brought that one down to either

https://www.amazon.com/Bentgo%C2%AE-Pop-Bento-Style-Compartments-Sustainable/dp/B0B3CLN8PX

or

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B3CLN8PX

, depending on how much I cared at the time. I kind of expected firefox to bring it down to the first version.

[-] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 14 points 7 months ago

Not sure what th is, but ref is the referrer's ID, which gives the referrer a referral / affiliate bonus if you purchase the item using that link. In theory it's not a bad way to support the referrer and it's not linked to you as an individual personally. You can remove it of course if you feel like they don't deserve the money for referring you to a deal. In the end ref or no ref the price of the item remains the same for you.

I think firefox leaves the ref in intentionally.

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[-] plz1@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

The "ref" param is clearly a tracking breadcrumb, but not sure what the "th" param is. So this is "better" than nothing, but still has room for improvement. "_encoding" is fine, but UTF-8 should be a default for most users anyways.

[-] const_void@lemmy.ml 21 points 7 months ago

Firefox is getting better every day

[-] hiramfromthechi@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago

Can't wait til the entire extension ecosystem is available on mobile

[-] aeharding@lemmy.world 17 points 7 months ago

Does anyone know where the source code for this is?

[-] beizhia@lemmy.world 17 points 7 months ago

My c++ is pretty rusty, but I hopped through the changelogs. I think this is the source for it here https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/file/tip/toolkit/components/antitracking/URLQueryStringStripper.cpp

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[-] verysoft@kbin.social 17 points 7 months ago

There's also the ClearURLs add-on.

[-] hiramfromthechi@lemmy.world 16 points 7 months ago

Or uBlock Origin with filter lists. 👍

[-] DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 7 months ago

Well yeah but building in privacy-enhancing features like this is a great strategy for FF.

[-] speaker_hat@lemmy.one 10 points 7 months ago

I'm curious whether this sweet feature alone will decrease data greedy websites revenue in $ millions

[-] LufyCZ@lemmy.world 18 points 7 months ago
[-] yoz@aussie.zone 8 points 7 months ago

Is it available for Firefox android ?

[-] hiramfromthechi@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

As of this writing, it doesn't look like it.

As @SatyrSack@lemmy.one here mentioned, URLChecker is a good way to manipulate a URL before opening it.

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[-] kratoz29@lemm.ee 8 points 7 months ago

Can someone ELI5 what is the difference with normal link sharing?

Does it change for the end user something or what? I ask because I almost never share stuff from my browsers, but I do from some apps such as social media or Sync for Lemmy/Voyager.

[-] stebo02@sopuli.xyz 20 points 7 months ago

it just removes all the crap at the end of a link

[-] DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 7 months ago

Generally a link tells a browser where to find something on the Web, but you can stuff it with additional information so that when a server receives a request for that something, it will know how the browser got that link.

This feature strip's out that additional information.

[-] mojo@lemm.ee 10 points 7 months ago

Try to copy an Amazon link with and without this option and you'll see

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[-] RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml 7 points 7 months ago

Is there an about:config setting to make this the default action or are we gonna have to be patient for that?

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[-] CCF_100@sh.itjust.works 7 points 7 months ago

Based Firefox

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this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
1255 points (99.4% liked)

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