Of course it does. Firefoxes new ClearURL copy feature is great
this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2023
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Privacy
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Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
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This was the final thing that convinced me to give Firefox another go, thank you.
One of us! One of us! Firefox is fucking amazing, just set up all the recommended extensions like ublock origin and privacy badger.
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I believe Spotify is doing something similar.
Would be nice if social networks and messengers would automatically strip these parameters.
Same with Reddit, FB Messenger, Instagram, TikTok... Some of them are harder to spot, like how Reddit now goes reddit.com/r/example/s/8913y4h93
Would be nice if social networks and messengers would automatically strip these parameters.
I started using URLCheck on Android and SO MANY links have some kind of tracker that you can drop and not lose any functionality. Things like Signal (and even Lemmy/Mastodon) could do something similar and throw up a little warning when it encounters a known tracker, then offer to clean the URL for you.
Another advantage is that the clean URLs are a lot more descriptive
I'm using FairEmail on Android. When tapping a link, thr app detects tracking parameters and offers to remove them. I really like that feature and wish other apps would offer something similar.
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adding this list to uBlock Origin helps: https://github.com/DandelionSprout/adfilt/blob/master/LegitimateURLShortener.txt
best filter maintainer ever
This list is a must.
Do people use the share button rather than just copy the URL from the address bar? Am I just really old?
Am I just really old?
Sounds like you have cleaned a few trackballs in your days
Now I just try to keep my regular balls clean.
Keep up the good fight, buddy
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Many people use a phone and many people have youtube app on it.
If you use youtube on a mobile app rather than a browser, it doesn't have an address bar
Never use an app for what should be a web page.
That would be all apps then. Apps are legitimately great. Websites do the same scummy things.
Apps are legitimately great.
Except they are mostly just lobotomized websites where you can't copy the text or save media to your local device.
But it's blockable on websites. Firefox with ublock makes YouTube, Facebook, and instragam a relatively pleasant experience again.
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An added benefit of the share button is that it generates a minified link – "https://youtu.be/abcde" instead of "https://youtube.com/watch?v=abcde". I find it neater.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/watch?v=abcde
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
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I don't have a choice when using the app, though I have been removing the tracker from the URL.
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Adds?
I thought they always had them?
They didn't until a few weeks/months ago on the web version. Not sure about mobile. I noticed when the generated links became twice as long.
No kidding? I always thought they had them. Hmm
Do people not sanitize links they share? 90% of an amazon url is garbage referrer info.
It wasn't until a few months ago did YouTube add them.
Never log in to YouTube
I find it convenient to do so to follow channels.
Then use newpipe.
free tube!
use a privacy frontend, they let you login too
Or just an RSS reader, every channel has an RSS feed
If you're on Android use grayjay, if you're on Linux use freetube. You can follow channels on both of those.
If using grayjay and you can afford it please do pay for the license; you're not technically required; it's based on the honor system, but it helps the developers at FUTO work on it and it helps them donate to other FOSS projects.
If you use freetube please donate to them, even a dollar, the developers will greatly appreciate it.
Let's support software that doesn't hate us!
Copy clean URLs with ClearURL
Don't know if any other browsers do it, but Firefox for desktop added an option when right clicking links to copy without URL tracker. I don't know if it works on yt links, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.
This extension will automatically remove tracking elements from URLs to help protect your privacy when browsing through the Internet.
Firefox:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/clearurls/
Chrome:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clearurls/lckanjgmijmafbedllaakclkaicjfmnk/
Heads up, I had to remove this extension on my browser because some websites would get stuck in a redirect loop because it'd remove the tracking stuff it'd use in a redirect chain. Took me months to figure out what was causing it
This is built-in to firefox rightclick menu when copying the URL, no extension needed. Less extensions means less fingerprint
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I made a PWA that can quickly remove tracking variables called Link Cleaner. If you install it through Chrome or another Chromium browser on Android, it shows up as a share target, so you can share links to Link Cleaner and then share again to the intended target.
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