Of course it does. Firefoxes new ClearURL copy feature is great
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.
I believe Spotify is doing something similar.
Would be nice if social networks and messengers would automatically strip these parameters.
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Eventually I think sites will customize every URL for each user.
TikTok is quite sneaky. Sharing from their mobile app, you get:
https://www.tiktok.com/t/[9digitCode]/Only by opening the URL in a browser will you see:
https://www.tiktok.com/@[user]/video/[19numerals]?_t=[alphanumericIdentifier]&_r=1…which can be sanitized.Here’s how they took it a step further too: YCombinator.
Same with Reddit, FB Messenger, Instagram, TikTok… Some of them are harder to spot, like how Reddit now goes
reddit.com/r/example/s/8913y4h93Would 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.
Oh that’s nice! Hopefully more apps integrate that function
For example, see the link in the post body here:
Why are you linking to reddit…
I was linking to a page where someone unknowingly used a link with a tracker, as an example of what I was talking about
Here’s a screenshot if that’s better
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.
Pretty sure TikTok does it as well
That was the first place I noticed it, thought it was really smart of them, someone would send me a meme or whatever and it would show their account at the top. Was impressed that they generate so many links, now they can see who knows who so easily
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.
Pics or didn’t happen.
LemonpartyDOTcom
Leave that shit on Reddit
Keep up the good fight, buddy
Good. You don’t want these tracked.
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.
There is other apps like newpipe or grayjay, i havent experienced any ads using them
And I know folks that have never lost money on crypto. Doesn’t make crypto less of a risk.
websites are sandboxed while apps have almost full access. So, no, they don’t.
What does that mean? I don’t understand. Apps have full access to what that websites don’t?
Exactly. A website has to download ALL the HTML every time. Sure, it can put all that in a JavaScript file and cache it but it has to be built each time. With an app, you (the devs) get to choose what to load, and it’s just usually a few simple things each time instead of constantly running a script.
Using Lemmy as a web app really sucked. Having an actual app with actual integration to a robust UI works.
Plus as an app developer you get to go through the user’s contacts and files. Having an actual app locks you and allows you to be the product the app owners sell. Nothing else and certainly nothing of value for 99% of the apps out there.
Apple does not allow this out of the box. You have to confirm for every permission. There is not automatic access to files.
And yet you said yes when asked.
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.
First link is 404, second link is not 404
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That is 100% wrong. Did you read the tweets or even look at a single YouTube URL?
youtube.com/watch?v=FOO&si=BAR would be shortened to just youtu.be/FOO?si=BAR
The link to other people’s account is in the &si=BAR part. Probably standing for “share ID” or “source ID”or something. The shortened link is just the same as the long one with watch?v=FOO being included in the URL instead of the parameters.
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I always assume shortened links are viruses, at least that’s what got ingrained in me from the yearly security IT lectures
I don’t have a choice when using the app, though I have been removing the tracker from the URL.
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Share is easier to do it at a specific time in the video.
Like, you can manually add the “t=x” at the end for seconds, but it’s just easier to click the box to make the share button add it.
Right click on the video, there is an option to copy the video url at the time you want. As far as i can see it does not contain the account info.
Or you could just tell the person what to FF to.
Adds?
I thought they always had them?
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Huh? That’s just wrong.
youtube.com/watch?v=FOO&si=BAR would be shortened to just youtu.be/FOO?si=BAR
The link to other people’s account is in the &si=BAR part. Probably standing for “share ID” or “source ID”or something. The shortened link is just the same as the long one with watch?v=FOO being included in the URL instead of the parameters.
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!
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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
That’ll address the case where one is copy-pasting an URL, but not where following existing links.
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.
I don’t understand how to install it. Looked in Google Play store but didn’t find it there.
When you’re in Chrome or another browser, there’s an install option in the main overflow (three dots) menu.
It’s a PWA, which basically means it’s just a website. If you’re using Firefox on mobile opening up the website won’t ask you to install it.
if i open a youtube link with a share id in newpipe, am I still ok, does it ignore the id? or do i need to delete the id first?
