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Firefox starting to remove tracking parameters from shared URLs
(blog.nightly.mozilla.org)
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this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
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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.
There already is an addon called ClearURLs
Thanks!
Maybe, but only like 3% of people are using Firefox so, maybe not?
@NounsAndWords
At least in Germany, it's about 10%.
@4am