“Copy Link Without Site Tracking” now on @firefox ! 🙌
Personally, I have found this feature to be too limited. I still use the ClearURLs extension, which is more effective in my experience.
However, neither one is a silver bullet. Here’s an example I just took from Amazon (I blocked out some values with X’s):
Original URL:
https://www.amazon.com/Hydro-Flask-Around-Tumbler-Trillium/dp/B0C353845H/ref=XXXX?qid=XXXXXXXXXX&refinements=p_XXXXXXXXXXXXX&rps=1&s=sporting-goods&sr=XXX
Using Firefox’s “copy link without site tracking” feature:
https://www.amazon.com/Hydro-Flask-Around-Tumbler-Trillium/dp/B0C353845H/ref=XXXX?qid=XXXXXXXXXX&refinements=p_XXXXXXXXXXXXX&rps=1&s=sporting-goods
Using ClearURLs:
https://www.amazon.com/Hydro-Flask-Around-Tumbler-Trillium/dp/B0C353845H?refinements=p_XXXXXXXXXXXXX&rps=1
The ideal, canonical URL, which no tools I’m familiar with will reliably generate:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C353845H
Longer but still fully de-personalized URL:
https://www.amazon.com/Hydro-Flask-Around-Tumbler-Trillium/dp/B0C353845H
If anybody knows a better solution that works with a wide variety of sites, please share!
This will just push websites to change the orders and names of their query params (maybe regularly).
I don’t think one can safely omit all query params from all sites and expect a decent experience across all websites.
You are fighting a good fight, I salute you, but query params (the part of the url where the identifiers are included) are a valid and core part of Internet addresses. Trying to strip them away universally will only work for so long.
I think that’s why you haven’t found a tool that meets all your needs yet, because many sites have legitimate uses for those params that don’t include tracking. You’ll probably need tools designed specifically for Amazon and other specific websites/services.
Oh yes, definitely. I think this is why Mozilla has not made this the default behavior in Firefox; there will always be the risk of false-positives breaking copied links, so it’s important that people know that there’s some kind of mutation happening.
ClearURLs uses a JSON file with site-specific regex patterns and rules. In theory I could customize this for myself, or better yet submit a pull request on their GitHub. If I have time I’ll look into it.
To be honest it should not be that hard to write a browser extension that just strips away all query parameters. That’s just a simple string match for the question mark and deleting everything after it.
The problems begin when sites start implementing other URL shenanigans like your /ref=XXXX? example.
The workable solution there would be to have the extension match user defined patterns for different sites.
The problem with a nuclear solution like that is that some sites use query parameters as actual query parameters. Like DuckDuckGo.
Yeah, though that should only be an issue if the link you’re copying needs to show query results instead of a more permanent page such as a product listing or a video on YouTube.
In general, the conventions and standards are followed. But yeah, linking to search results without tracking bullshit is kind of challenging.
It already has been out for like a few months
Awesome. Would be nice to remove some of those useless options. (Stop trying to make Pocket happen, please)
I don’t think, they need to ‘make Pocket happen’. At least, I assume, it’s already generating income for them, which makes them somewhat less dependent on search engine deals, which is what they want from it.
Anyways, if you want the buttons to be hidden, you can disable extensions.pocket.enabled in about:config.
Can I make it the default?
Not at the moment. You’ll have to use ClearURLs or uBlock Origin filter lists if you don’t wanna have to right click.
More here: https://lemmy.world/comment/5626180
Huge Firefox fan here. I can’t help but feel this is some junky attention grabbing “feature”. Like… Surely there’s a better implementation than a redundand long-ass right-click menu option.
Plenty of plugins will do the same thing quietly for every link you ever interact with anyway…
The problem is that it will sometimes remove parameters that aren’t tracking parameters. It won’t happen often, but if it happens, that can be really bad.
Just imagine someone copying a link, pasting it into a document and only noticing several months later, that the link doesn’t anymore resolve to what they wanted.
If you install a plugin for this, then you’ll know to check that the link still works before documenting it somewhere. But rolling this out as the default for millions of unsuspecting users, that is just an entirely different story…
