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With the goals of being the most privacy-first browser, it would be ideal to have the option to strip trackers from copied URLs. Taken from another page's description of URL trackers:

"Many websites use tracking elements in the URL (e.g. https://example.com?utm_source=newsletter1&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=sale) to mark your online activity. All that tracking code is not necessary for a website to be displayed or work correctly and can therefore be removed...

Another common example are Amazon URLs. If you search for a product on Amazon you will see a very long URL, such as: https://www.amazon.com/dp/exampleProduct/ref=sxin_0_pb?__mk_de_DE=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&keywords=tea&pd_rd_i=exampleProduct&pd_rd_r=8d39e4cd-1e4f-43db-b6e7-72e969a84aa5&pd_rd_w=1pcKM&pd_rd_wg=hYrNl&pf_rd_p=50bbfd25-5ef7-41a2-68d6-74d854b30e30&pf_rd_r=0GMWD0YYKA7XFGX55ADP&qid=1517757263&rnid=2914120011

Indeed most of the above URL is tracking code. (With a cleaned URL), it will look like this:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/exampleProduct"

This feature is similar to the extension in firefox:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/clearurls/?utm_source=addons.mozilla.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=search
(Add-on doesn't work with Orion currently)

Since some people like to have the tracker built-in so that pages load back correctly to where they were with context, having the option to use it or not (optional) would make it best. These trackers are used by sites to know what information you save for later, share with others, etc. since you will follow that copied link back to the site later.

Having this in Orion would be a differentiating feature from other privacy-first browsers, just like the native add-blocking capabilities.

Loving Orion!

  • Vlad Brave also has this feature. On right-clicking on any link, it will give Copy Clean Link option which removes tracking parameter. Essentially it applies these rules on the url to remove the tracking parameters.

not to be a little offtopic but this also could be helpful with sharing specific product pages too. or in my particular usercase something like this would had automatically snip anything past the question mark character in an ebay url, or to give you this simple dummy example: ebay.ca/itm/40000 address instead of ebay.ca/itm/40000?e=randomthingshere.morecruft

    14 days later

    It is also possible to have that feature on iOS? (I did not want to create another identical issue)

      4 months later

      eirk This seems to fall under those types of feaures like 'protect from fingerpritning' that are more marketing then actually useful.

      Not only would we need to keep a database of URL params to strip, but this will undoubtedly break some legit sites. On top of it all, no ad-tech company that is serious about tracking relies on url paramater tracking, it is more there as a trojan horse so that users who remove this would have a false sense of security that they got rid of tracking.

        Vlad i agree that removing tracking parameters from urls is not enough, but i do believe that it is better than nothing. they are effective to a certain extent, especially when sharing URLs, and sharing extremely long URLs (eg amazon) is a nusiance

        Also, since Safari is doing it, I think that the market standard is starting to be having URL parameter removal.

        There is no need to mantain our own dataset. you can use an existing one:
        https://github.com/ClearURLs/rules/ (they also have a mirror on gitlab)
        https://github.com/DandelionSprout/adfilt/blob/master/LegitimateURLShortener.txt (here, url shortener refers to removing tracking params, thus shortening the URL. also has gitlab mirror)

        • Vlad replied to this.

          eirk Shortening URLs is different use case than advertising this as 'tracking protection' which is what Apple does. So trying to find language to describe what this really is ("cleaning URLs" is more accurate for example)

          Merged 5 posts from Remove tracking parameters.
            5 months later

            Today Firefox 120 offers this new handy feature: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/120.0/releasenotes/

            So Firefox users can use it to automatically remove common tracking params like utm when copying a link

            For years whenever I want to share an interesting site to friends, I switch to the address bar and copy the url, , then trigger a Keyboard Maestro macro to remove all pre-definied params. I think it would be convenient for us and hope Orion implements it as well.

              +1

              Would be nice if this happened automatically when using the cmd+shift+c shortcut to copy current URL.

              Arc also does this, by far one of my favorite features in that browser.

              • Vlad replied to this.
                Merged 3 posts from Copy Link Without Site Tracking.

                  XAY What kind of linke are you guys sharing? I haven't seen a link with tracking in ages.

                    Vlad Brave also has this feature. On right-clicking on any link, it will give Copy Clean Link option which removes tracking parameter. Essentially it applies these rules on the url to remove the tracking parameters.

                    • Vlad replied to this.

                      Vlad Pretty much any social network with a 'share' button, for example. Tiktok being one of the worst offenders.

                      • yee replied to this.
                        20 days later

                        XAY agreed, hope the filter can apply to share actions.

                          Vlad You may also want to take a look at ClearURLs' data. It has a few extra rules that AdGuard's URL Tracking Protection filter (which Brave uses and uBO has) seem to not have.

                          Also, currently blocked by #6739.

                            a month later