points by GuB-42 2 years ago

Probably because there are other methods for Chrome that don't apply to Firefox.

Like when I noticed that some sites did some URL rewriting trickery on Firefox and others browsers, but not for Chrome. The trick is to show you the proper URL the link points to, but as you click, it is substituted for one that is a redirection, for tracking purposes (ex: "https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http:://actualsite..."). On Chrome, they don't need to use these tricks as the browser supports the "ping" attribute of links, so they can do their tracking without rewriting the URL.

JohnFen 2 years ago

This kind of BS is why I don't ever click on links directly. I copy/paste them instead, so I can examine and trim them. Often, the actual link is through some sort of redirection service and I need to copy/paste the text the browser shows for the link rather than the actual link.

There's so much trickery and nonsense around this stuff that no link is safe to just click on.

  • l8rlump 2 years ago

    Check out the Privacy Badger extension. I believe it removes the tracking stuff from (some) links.

    • vanderZwan 2 years ago

      There are also dedicated link cleaning extensions (I use Neat Url).

      • flexagoon 2 years ago

        You actually don't need to use any dedicated extensions for that, as this functionality is built into uBO, you just need to find a filter list (just search for "ublock origin clearurl list" or whatever)

        • vanderZwan 2 years ago

          Does it work on links copied from the page for chats?

    • JohnFen 2 years ago

      I use privacy badger, but it doesn't cover everything so I end up having to manually check all links anyway.

shantara 2 years ago

I've also noticed this behavior popping up a lot lately, but I had no idea why. The URL with tracking included was still blocked by uBlock Origin, but having to manually copy-paste the relevant portion was an annoyance.

Thanks for the context!

  • seba_dos1 2 years ago

    Check out ClearURLs extension.

Thiez 2 years ago

Wow, that is pretty disgusting behavior.

  • shadowgovt 2 years ago

    The web developer interprets missing features as damage and polyfills around them.