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No need to remove the URL tracking parameters manually. π₯³
this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
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They should make this the default.
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.
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.
This just:
Encourages companies to try to work around it
More importantly, possibly breaks important functionality
It's like saying GDPR encourages companies to try work around data protection, so it should not be implemented.
It's not like that at all.
Links support parameters for a reason, and I promise you that the main reason isn't tracking. They can convey important info like the language, search parameters, a specific comment, etc.
Removing them willy-nilly by default is going to cause issue sooner or later, and then people are going to blame Firefox for "not working" and are just gonna switch to Chrome because "it just works".
That's not what we want is it?
As I understand now it removes only limited set of query strings
Yeah but the list is hardcoded. Collisions can happen.
Also, since it's hardcoded, it's easily gameable, and it will be gamed if too many people start filtering them out.
It's a good start but a bad solution overall
"utm_" collisions?
The trackers can be renamed to anything that's regularly used in other places.
Pushing to make this a default will only harm the small minority that might be enjoying the benefits right now.
At least with the current way it's set up.
Opt-out then, the majority won't care
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.
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.
Doesnβt it just clean up the link or does Firefox actually know which part of the link to remove?
What do you mean?
How does it know what part of the link is the site tracking?
Looks like it has a list of global and site specific parameters that it is safe to remove.
Generally, most are variables prefixed with
utm_They likely built an index from most of the Analytics services also.
I think it's a combination of things, a basic approach of removing the query string (after the question mark) with exceptions for different sites that might need some of the query string.
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.
What is it?
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/clearurls/
Itβs not the default because it can break links sometimes, like links that have authentication details in the parameters.