this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2023

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Privacy

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I wish more people clean URLs before sharing it to others. (lemmy.ml)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by narwhal@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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I see a lot of people, including friends and family, sharing URLs rife with tracking parameters.

I feel alone in making sure that I'm sharing the cleanest possible URLs to others. For example, checking if the URLs are shortened to hide plenty of tracking params.

Just need to vent, thanks for reading.

Edit: adding some context for future references.

By using url tracking params, tech companies can track who shares the content and who clicks on that specific shared urls. A simple but effective tracking method.

Try sharing Instagram post or YouTube video from the apps.

Instagram adds 'igshid=' . YouTube adds 'si='.

If you share the same IG or YouTube content from different accounts. The 'igshid', 'si' value will be different.

This can be used to tag who shares it, and who clicks on that specific url param value.

TikTok hides a ton of such params behind shortened url. Try expanding tiktok shared urls.

If you use android, use this app to expand, analyze and clean up urls https://github.com/TrianguloY/UrlChecker

If you use Firefox (you should), install ublock origin and add this url tracking filter maintained by adguard: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AdguardTeam/FiltersRegistry/master/filters/filter_17_TrackParam/filter.txt

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[–] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 250 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Friends and family don't know what cleaning a URL means. Nobody does.

[–] StereoTrespasser@lemmy.world 92 points 11 months ago (33 children)

And ironic that OP doesn't share how to clean them.

[–] AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

On YouTube links, delete anything after the ?

Someone post the next website

[–] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 35 points 11 months ago (7 children)

That's terrible advice, you'd just be left with

https://youtube.com/watch

You need the "?v=" and the jumble of letters immediately after.

For example: https://youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

[–] VonReposti@feddit.dk 19 points 11 months ago

XcQ, link stays blue

[–] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://piped.video/watch

https://piped.video/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

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[–] tomatocake@feddit.de 9 points 11 months ago (2 children)

They're talking about the query param that gets added when using the Share button: https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?si=dwX01vG-EivlOoYe - the ?si=... should be removed.

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[–] mo_ztt@lemmy.world 51 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I had someone watch me edit a URL in the address bar and she clearly thought I was just fucking around, because there was no possible way that any human could edit the Matrix language up there and accomplish anything productive.

[–] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 31 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

That's part of my point. Most people just don't know.
That's like telling someone to just tune their carburator.

[–] pixelscript@lemmy.ml 15 points 11 months ago (2 children)

inb4 you get an indignant reply suggesting that carburetor tuning is a must-have skill for absolutely anyone who owns anything that has one

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[–] Yearly1845@reddthat.com 14 points 11 months ago (4 children)

I mean carburetor tuning is a must-have skill for absolutely anyone who has one. Otherwise you can never be sure that you are getting an ideal fuel-air mixture, and the ratio changes over time with the temperature, humidity, seasons, etc. Really, it's irresponsible to not know how to do this if you have a car with a carburetor.

[–] Damage@slrpnk.net 8 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Brake line bleeding is a must-have skill for anyone with brakes. Otherwise you can never be sure not to have air in the brake lines. Really it's irresponsible not to know how to do this if you have a vehicle with idraulic brakes.

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[–] otl@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 11 months ago

They don't necessarily need to; hopefully we can help people install uBlock Origin which removes tracking query parameters from URLs. See privacy.txt

[–] netchami@sh.itjust.works 6 points 11 months ago (4 children)

That's why I always install ClearURLs on my family members computers

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[–] otl@lemmy.sdf.org 87 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Thankfully uBlock Origin removes those parameters for us. The default filters include a whole bunch of removeparam filters; e.g. privacy.txt See also removeparam.

Maybe you could help your friends and family install Firefox and/or uBlock Origin? Every little bit helps :)

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[–] JokeDeity@lemm.ee 44 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

To be honest 99% of people, certainly including me, probably don't recognize tracking elements in a URL unless they're like affiliate links.

[–] Gsus4@feddit.nl 11 points 11 months ago (2 children)

If people were really good at removing that info, they'd probably create a unique hash including all that data that we wouldn't be able to edit.

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[–] EddoWagt@feddit.nl 10 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Pretty much all junk which isn't human readable is tracking info

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[–] streetfestival@lemmy.ca 32 points 11 months ago

Phones and chrome are designed to prevent people from noticing that they're being tracked and helping big tech track others

[–] TankieTanuki@hexbear.net 31 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

It's not just safer, they're nicer to look at too. I hate seeing a 20 character URL followed by a ? and 200 characters.

Edit: lord-bezos-amused product links are a major offender here.

[–] over_clox@lemmy.world 27 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Indeed. I use Léon on Android, very straightforward, open source, and easy to install and configure...

https://github.com/svenjacobs/leon

[–] narwhal@lemmy.ml 24 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Nice. I personally prefer using this one: https://github.com/TrianguloY/UrlChecker

[–] Gooey0210@sh.itjust.works 6 points 11 months ago

This app is awesome, using it and really enjoying it

I would say this is my app do the year

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[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 25 points 11 months ago

This would be a good feature add to Lemmy. Clean pre-post.

[–] randint@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz 24 points 11 months ago

Agreed. Recently youtube started adding tracking parameters (?si=) to their share links. I always clean them up.

[–] variants@possumpat.io 22 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Yeah I always mention it when people send a link with all the extra stuff, how you can usually delete everything past the question mark

[–] narwhal@lemmy.ml 18 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Some apps are hiding it behind shortened URLs. So it looks clean, but if you expand it, then oh boy.

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[–] sovietknuckles@hexbear.net 21 points 11 months ago (8 children)

If you get them to install ClearUrls in their browser (Firefox, not Firefox), they can copy/paste URLs directly from their URL bar and the URL will be clean with no extra effort.

I keep it enabled in all my browser profiles pretty much always

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[–] Mandy@sh.itjust.works 20 points 11 months ago (1 children)

People barely know what a browser is, you cant expect them to know what an url is, let alone what clearing it is

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[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DandelionSprout/adfilt/master/LegitimateURLShortener.txt

Add that to people you know Ublock lists

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[–] CCPIsBased@thelemmy.club 15 points 11 months ago

I wish websites would clean their URLs

[–] Clbull@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago

The OCD part of me really wants to clean up those URLs simply because the link becomes a massive novella of garbage that's harder to read than Yu-Gi-Oh card text.

[–] Saff@lemmy.ml 12 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Interesting, I never really thought about this before. I wonder if there’s a clipboard manager that does this automatically?

[–] Synnr@sopuli.xyz 6 points 11 months ago

There is a Firefox plugin which I believe is called CleanURLs.

it's interesting that you mention the shorturls OP... I'm almost positive as of today that those links you can share that are like amazon.com/a/ab3cd4 are customized tracking links.

Problem is, if you paste it in your browser from the app, it doesn't go back to the original URL. You have to search the product again and customize the color, number, etc, and then strip tracking again from the url.

Most people just want to send a friend a link of the thing they think they'll like.

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[–] netchami@sh.itjust.works 11 points 11 months ago (2 children)

On Android, LinkSheet supports cleaning URLs. It's an awesome tool in general.

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[–] FrostyCaveman@lemm.ee 11 points 11 months ago

I thought I was alone in my windmill-tilting on this one! Nice to see there are others who clean URLs of unnecessary querystring parameters

[–] Rengoku@lemm.ee 10 points 11 months ago

Filter cleaner should be built into the browser.

[–] shortwavesurfer@monero.town 9 points 11 months ago

I try to do it. Mainly i see a lot of ?utm_source shit and kill it.

[–] robot_dog_with_gun@hexbear.net 8 points 11 months ago

unfortunately most people don't know what a url is.

gui was a mistake, or something.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

I always remove anything after /ref= from an Amazon link before I forward it to my wife (she has the account and does the orders).

[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

iOS 17 is supposed to do this automatically now.

https://9to5mac.com/2023/06/08/ios-17-link-tracking-protection/

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