Great stuff. Firefox swinging the big dick about lately.
this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
1675 points (99.5% liked)
Firefox
17957 readers
280 users here now
A place to discuss the news and latest developments on the open-source browser Firefox
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
Ooh. I hope this can be set as the default for 'Copy Link' and then I can just have the tracking when I actually want it.
have the tracking when I actually want it.
So never? I agree defaulting it would be great as long as it doesn't falsely remove anything.
Not all queryparameters are tracking, so the option to copy the actual href of the hyperlink is useful.
Most of the time I appreciate a feature that strips them automatically
Yea, existing extensions get things wrong sometimes. I’m sure this will be the same - especially if sites start changing things to temporarily circumvent. Needs to be an easy way to grab the real URL just in case.
load more comments
(1 replies)
firefox removes tracking data
chrome wants to make it possible for websites to refuse to serve you data if you run unapproved software
there is, in fact, a good guy in the browser wars
Reading the chrome bit just made me disgusted lol
load more comments
(2 replies)
That’s awesome! I use the Clear URLs extension and it does a great job but it’ll be nice to have this capability baked in.
Had no idea something existed for this, I'm forever deleted annoying tracking info from links. Mozilla continues to impress me with their privacy additions... latest update notified me about email masking which looks like it'll be a major boon once I work out how to use it.
Clear URL is great. Beware that it can break some login and payment sites though. The Addon unfortunately lacks a whitelist so you have to turn it on and off, so it's easy to forget to turn back on.
This may be difficult to maintain as some query parameters might be necessary. How will they be sure they’re not stripping essential elements? Won’t this become an arms race to mask tracking elements as “legitimate” looking parameters?
Awesome if they can pull it off, though.
There are common, well-known tracking parameters that Google uses such as the ones starting with "utm_"
most of the time sharing utm links isn't helpful to the origin as if you copy a link from your email it'll have medium=email, but actually should now be medium=direct
Anything is better than nothing. Besides, it's still useful because you can see where the original link was copied from, and you still have the referrer header
A uBlock style community sourced list would be a great way to address this. Once it's in prod, an addon would be next.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Won’t this become an arms race to mask tracking elements as “legitimate” looking parameters?
Maybe, but only like 3% of people are using Firefox so, maybe not?
load more comments
(1 replies)
Another fine addition would be a cut of redirecting trash. If you post some link in some soc network, it would sometimes replace it with it's own link going through an outbound clicks tracker, safety pages 'Do you really want to follow it?' or just block you saying the link seems malicious.
If I'm a 3%er, can I choose not to have it?
There is an Extension called FastForward which skips ad-link redirectors.
Not sure if thats what you mean.
load more comments
(2 replies)
I think Gmail on Android does this. Any link you click on in the app Firefox shows you the initial Google address before you go to the link you clicked on.
If you copy and paste the URL this doesn't happen.
Based Firefox
Neat. Now we need a built-in AMPutator.
Is AMP still a thing? I haven't seen it in ages.
I don't use Google so maybe that's why, but I hadn't even seen it on Reddit or Lemmy in more than a year I believe.
Oh man. I see it all the time. People share amp links on social too often.
I see it pretty often. But most of the time, if an "AMPutator" bot doesn't reply, someone usually mentions it and says to stop sharing AMP links and provides links to information about it. It's good to see, but most people still aren't aware of it, and most of those people wouldn't care much. We all need to keep a lookout and always be ready to inform and teach others about it. It's good to have articles about how AMP is bad for everyone (except google) saved so we can quickly share them every time we see someone share an AMP link.
Firefox once again proving it’s the GOAT of browsers.
I’m sure this will come to mobile soon as well.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Would love to see this becoming a default !
Fucking fantastic, People’s browser gets better and better!
BASED
This should be default, or at least a switch, that if enabled, all links copied without tracking. BTW i was thinking, isnt there a simple app or service, that does only this: listen for links in clipboard, if a link added, automatically removes tracking params, and replaces with that on clipboard?
load more comments
(1 replies)
How does firefox determine which params are trackers and which params are required data?
Tried it yesterday. Not working on Amazon links quite yet, hopefully the feature improves. Would love the ability to toggle it for default.
It’s a shame they went for the additional option rather than a persistent setting that would always strip it from a URI.
Hoping that this is just testing for that to come.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Good move
🙏
Happy to see this.
I think I’m against this. Not because it’s the wrong thing to do, but it’s just going to swing marketers & such to obscure their tracking URLs to something like /my-slug/hashed-uid-for-tracking-without-query-param/post & it maybe unsafe or impossible to replace that part of the URL is some cases (think how not all credit cards numbers work, it has a built-in algorithm). The corpos can do this already now but query params are easier & less fiddly. Despite the large number of add-ons that could combat this already (including a uBlock Origin filter list), there wasn’t enough incentive to start another ad/tracking arms race… but you introduce it as a default feature in a major (🤞) browser, & now the corpos take notice instead of being able to wave it off as something a minority of users are doing.
…And I say this as the guy that reminds $WORK chat poster to remove their tracking URLs for the privacy of the group
Will it work for Gmail's link hijackers where it routes you first to Google then forwards you to the actual site?
Yeah ok but my affiliate links what happens to them?
Valid question. Im short: They will stop working.
You are getting downvoted for the question because most people here think that you shouldn't use them. And they might be right.
view more: next ›