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"Copy Link Without Site Tracking" now on ! 🙌 (media.mstdn.social)

submitted 1 year ago by ente@mstdn.social to c/firefox@lemmy.ml

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"Copy Link Without Site Tracking" now on @firefox ! 🙌

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[–] hersh@literature.cafe 43 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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!

[–] KrokanteBamischijf@feddit.nl 2 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] moreeni@lemm.ee 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It already has been out for like a few months

[–] ente@mstdn.social 10 points 1 year ago

@moreeni just noticed it now! 🐢

[–] dwindling7373@feddit.it 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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...

[–] Contend6248@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

True, just make it default, and a separate button if you really want to send ref-links for example.

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

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...

[–] navi@lemmy.tespia.org 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can I make it the default?

[–] firewood010@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 year ago

It really should be "copy link" and "copy link with tracking".

[–] toastus@feddit.de 4 points 1 year ago

Nice.

[–] Neato@ttrpg.network 3 points 1 year ago

That's all those little link suffixes right? Can you turn this option into the default so you don't have 2 options? I don't think I've ever had a use case for sharing a link while telling my friends where I found it.

[–] soop@wetdry.world 1 points 1 year ago

@ente @firefox oh the amount of things you can do with the link compared to the amount of things you'll actually do with it

this context menu is a nightmarish abomination