Copy Link Without Site Tracking Feature - Logic Issues

[Winterbolt]

"Firefox supports a new “Copy Link Without Site Tracking” feature in the context menu which ensures that copied links no longer contain tracking information."
While this is a welcome change, i'd be much much more useful to replace “Copy Link Without Site Tracking” with “Open Link Without Site Tracking”...
Otherwise there's the needless waste of time manually open a new tab and paste the link...
This completely lacks any logic if you ask me, why didn't mozilla make it as i suggest above in the first place? Why the manually klick klick waste of time?

[EdiGrissini]

And its placed where the "paste" option was - which is annoying af and totally stupid. Can u deactivate it manually?

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

This information
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/how-to-delete-the-menu-quot-copy-link-without-site-tracki...

Go to Configuration Editor https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/about-config-editor-firefox
Search preference name privacy.query_stripping.strip_on_share.enabled
Try false

[Acoustic_Lou]

Agree on all of this. It might be a great feature, but it should be something you can check in the settings to have it as the default and forget about it.  It kept messing me up.  As someone wrote on reddit, "It was messing with my muscle memory as I always click on the longest looking text to select paste, but instead, I kept on pressing this other copy button instead."

At least now I know about about:config.

[sayten]

As usual, we get a "feature" we never asked for, which is implemented poorly, and which is shoehorned into the interface.  The number of times I go to paste a link and instead COPY A LINK I DIDNT WANT TO COPY is insane.  What kind of dumb design replaces a function with one that does the exact OPPOSITE of what it used to?  They seemingly do it on purpose as a way to brute force us into using the feature.  I am so sick of this crap.  I used to like opera because they let you change the interface, but even they started pulling the same crap with removing features and implementing features for reasons that were not in the best interest of the user.

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

About

---

@sayten wrote:

 I used to like opera because they let you change the interface

---

Advanced Firefox themes engine https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/advanced-firefox-themes-engine/idc-p/48455

[joefiesta]

I don't understand what is going on.   When I COPY a link, I am just copying the URL.  And when I paste it, for example in a text document, I just paste the URL.  When I use COPY WITHOUT SITE TRACKING, I paste the same plain old URL. 

so, what this does is very poorly explained.  How can copying a link have anything to do with the code it executes?

[jscher2000]

Firefox is built with a list of known tracking parameters, and those particular parameters are removed from the link during copying if you select this command. You can see the current list here: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-release/source/toolkit/components/antitracking/StripOnShareLists/LGPL/...

Think about sharing a link with a friend. Removing the tracking parameter makes it more difficult for the third party tracking service to connect you and your friend in the social graph data they sell to advertisers.

Other parameters are not removed, so ordinary URLs aren't going to look different.

[joefiesta]

 your missing my point.   The tracking stuff is not removed FROM THE LINK.    It is removed FROM THE CODE THE LINK POINTS TO.  (Is this called the "style sheet"?)

Am I wrong?   Are  a URL and a "LINK" not the same? 

From what I find in wikipedia,

"This <link /> element points the browser at a style sheet to use when presenting the HTML document to the user."   (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_element).

so,  does "copy without site tracking" not mean:  copy the "style sheet" while removing (negating?) any tracking stuff?

[jscher2000]

"Copy Link without Site Tracking" doesn't change the page. It copies the URL of the link and removes known tracking parameters. For example, with a hotel found in a Google hotel search, it removes the last parameter that you would normally have with "Copy Link":

https://www.google.com/travel/search?q=hotels%20in%20san%20diego&g2lb=2503771%2C2503781%2C2504374%2C4814050%2C4874190%2C4893075%2C4965990%2C72277293%2C72302247%2C72317059%2C72406588%2C72414906%2C72421566%2C72462234%2C72470899%2C72471280%2C72472051%2C72473841%2C72485658%2C72486593%2C72494250%2C72513513%2C72536387%2C72538597%2C72549171%2C72570850%2C72579072%2C72582855%2C72602340%2C72602734%2C72613563&hl=en-US&gl=us&ssta=1&ts=CAESCgoCCAMKAggDEAAaUQozEjEyJDB4ODBkOTUzMGZhZDkyMWU0YjoweGQzYTIxZmRmZDE1ZGY3OToJU2FuIERpZWdvEhoSFAoHCOgPEAYYAxIHCOgPEAYYBBgBMgIQACoHCgU6A1VTRA&qs=CAEyJkNoZ0lsZVM4blp2OC05SzhBUm9MTDJjdk1YUmthM2g2WnpNUUFROAZCCQm1kX7C0yHKpUIJCZ88SIK0qDgWQgkJFTKvs-HvpbxaTggBMkqqAUcQASoKIgZob3RlbHMoADIeEAEiGg_tdTSdvlizi6MbWkEovTCS0EuEfhXPfGMoMhcQAiITaG90ZWxzIGluIHNhbiBkaWVnbw&ap=aAE&ictx=111&ved=2ahUKEwiar6_F2rOGAxUaLPkAHU2NIKcQyvcEegQIAxBx 

[gudguy1]

NOTE: Sorry folks but I had to upload a SECOND reply with jpg with the FULL URLs in it - since this site truncated the URLs in this posting, making it tough to see what I was describing....

Here is another example that may be a bit clearer:

Copying URL from the address bar (to read it without ads in Opera and save page as a PDF) - This one has all the site tracking ya want - the very LONG URL...:

• https://cio.com/article/3596805/7-ways-gen-ai-can-create-more-work-than-it-saves.html?utm_date=20241115180100&utm_campaign=CIO%20US%20Analytics%20and%20Machine%20Learning%20Report&utm_content=slotno-1-title-7%20ways%20gen%20AI%20can%20create%20more%20work%20than%20it%20saves&utm_term=CIO%20US%20Editorial%20Newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Adestra&huid=d0084fc1-ssss-4c17-ssss-1b638008ssss

in facebook "sometimes" provides the option to copy the URL/link from the address bar without site tracking….: it has none of the extra tracking info after .utm_date and before huid....

• https://cio.com/article/3596805/7-ways-gen-ai-can-create-more-work-than-it-saves.html?utm_date=20241115180100&huid=d0084fc1-ssss-4c17-ssss-1b638008ssss

But.... I do not always get that copy without site tracking....  Here are a couple of images where I 'thought' I disabled the site tracking for copying purposes, following the links @Agentvirtuel posted above - and it varies depending on the site you are on or going to:

copying URLs from search/address bar (CIO web page)

option set to true – site tracking is off....

1. https://www.cio.com/article/3596805/7-ways-gen-ai-can-create-more-work-than-it-saves.html?utm_date=2...
2. https://www.pluralsight.com/landing-pages/resource/offers/2020/first-60-days-cio?clickid=Cj0KCQiA_9u...

set to false – site tracking is on…

1. https://www.cio.com/article/3596805/7-ways-gen-ai-can-create-more-work-than-it-saves.html?utm_date=2...
2. https://www.pluralsight.com/landing-pages/resource/offers/2020/first-60-days-cio?clickid=Cj0KCQiA_9u...

copying URLs from inside the web page – it varies, some sites have site tracking within and some do not…. here, with the option set to true or false, same url...

set to true

https://app.vaia.com/signup-website/?lang=en&web_campaign=schule_environmental-science_ecological-co...

 set to false

https://app.vaia.com/signup-website/?lang=en&web_campaign=schule_environmental-science_ecological-co...
 

[gudguy1]

My bad.  I did not realize that this site would truncate the URLs, making it less clear what I was describing.

Soooo, I made another JPG with the URL content in it...

[manuel]

Hi, thanks so much for taking such a close look! It seems like there are a few query parameter that we miss and could strip. I would greatly apprechiate it if you could report missing parameters as described on https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1920601 (click the first link to submit reports).

[gudguy1]

Eh?
I 'kind of' knew about this for years now and had not bothered to do anything about it.
Not until last month when I saw joefiesta comment and figured I'd do a little more digging on my own (and it was a fair amount of time I squandered instead of some AI stuff I'm working on).
Not sure if it is missing parameters or not.
I just know that it is added URL content for tracking purposes....

[gudguy1]

Well.....

Many times, we do not want to share with the third party, now do we....  There are times we do not want that connection created for some or none of our friends.

[sayten]

You dont seem to understand how tracking works online.  That would be the first issue.  Not all links have tracking info imbedded in the URL/link.  Many do, and thats usually the string of letters and/or numbers added to the end of a link.  There are other ways to track as well.

[joefiesta]

thanks.   I get it now.   Only SOME urls contain this parameter that initiates certain tracking. 

and special thanks to JSCHER2000 who's example helped make it VERY clear.

[Name1]

This feature doesn't even seem to work correctly when I try copying YouTube links. The tracking part of the URL is still present and I need to remove it manually.

[gudguy1]

Yep, that is correct - kinda sucks when we have to waste timing doing that...

[Shaun]

Too all of you who replied to me, I sincerely apologise for taking so long to reply. Hong Kong is a different time zone and I was sleeping. I would also like to mention I appreciate very much to the comments posted about "Copy without site tracking" I have no problems now once it was explained. I have a lot of respect and admiration for the People who contribute to Firefox. Thank you all especially to those who replied.

Shaun

[ZW]

Like the other person above, after years of doing "Paste and Go" I had to figure out why I started just sitting there when doing this after upgrading.

How about making "Copy Link without Site Tracking" the default, and get rid of it off of the context menu?

Or enabling it without putting it on the context menu?   

Where is UAT at Mozilla anyway?  Is there any?

[gudguy1]

Yep, you said it.
The sad part of this is - is that we have to check each URL before using it because some sites do not have it....
Don't know about the rest of you - I just hope that lopping off the site tracking piece is enough for me.