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PSA on privuhcy

⁨1610⁩ ⁨likes⁩

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨FundMECFS@quokk.au⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

https://quokk.au/static/media/posts/1d/c0/1dc08isGgni1VfK.jpeg

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Comments

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  • Eheran@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    So annoying to always have to find out how far you can trim a URL before it breaks.

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    • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Typically anything after the “?”. That’s where the parameters live. There are always exceptions.

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      • Zachariah@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        There are many URLs that require parameters to load a resource (and aren’t necessarily tracking anything). With YouTube’s non-shortened links (for example), the video ID is after the ?, but is usually (but not always) immediately after.

        This:
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

        Can be shortened to:
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

        But no shorter.

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    • FundMECFS@quokk.au ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Happy cake day

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    • DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I mean that’s part of the fun of surfing the web, you get to play a fun puzzle game of “How to Lobotomize a URL”

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    • SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      There should be an extension that does this

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      • AtariDump@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/…/clearurls/

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      • GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        uBlock Origin with the appropriate filter list will do it for you, like this one: github.com/…/LegitimateURLShortener.txt

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    • brbposting@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Might be able to use a Redirect Checker, like:

      Redirect-Checker.org

      or

      WhereGoes.com

      Wonder if this helps with TikTok who has these custom URLs that don’t have parameters, just creepy personalized ones

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  • NotSteve_@piefed.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Everything after the ? can be safely removed

    This is usually true but but not always. There's often times when a URL query like that is used to choose the page to load. I believe wordpress does this

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    • kungen@feddit.nu ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Only on “I have really bad SEO” kinds of blogs. Query strings have been considered a negative thing for many many years.

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      • lime@feddit.nu ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        whuh? querystrings are integral to things like pagination. they are by no means a negative thing.

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      • tias@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Not everybody cares for SEO BS

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      • LwL@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Youtube has the video ID as a query parameter, to use the most obvious example…

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    • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      WordPress uses a taxonomic system you choose with a mix of the Settings page and how you organize your template hierarchy. To my knowledge there is no out of the box query url functionality in the core system.

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      • SomethingBurger@jlai.lu ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        There is. ?s= for a search, and you can combine it with other parameters such as date or taxonomy terms.

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    • brown567@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Sometimes I’ll post a picture straight from a duckduckgo search, and it doesn’t work without the stuff after the ?

      (I’m also not sure how long the url is valid for, so I try not to do this too often)

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  • kieron115@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    If you’re still using firefox, right click -> copy clean link. works most of the time.

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    • anzo@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      URL Cleaner on f-droid.org is a great app too!

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    • localhost001@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I just searched and found this one:

      linkcleaner.app

      The code is open source, and it supports several ways to install it on your device (PWA, shortcut, bookmarklet, and more).

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  • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I usually just do it because shorter links look better than 30 lines of crap

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    • vithigar@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Right? The fact that this is an extra bit of tracking information I don’t want makes this an easy sell for anyone looking for a reason to do this, but for me it’s because it just makes links uglier.

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  • Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yep!

    Only thing I want to see after a ? in a youtube url is t=4m20s

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    • lime@feddit.nu ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      personally i like v=aO82NftCga to be in there as well

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  • over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    This belongs more on Technology and Privacy communities.

    For Android users at least, I recommend the Léon URL Cleaner app, when you share a link from many common sources to the URL Cleaner, it removes all that tracking shit for you.

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    • sk1nnym1ke@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      This belongs more on Technology and Privacy communities.

      I guess it was posted here to reach a broader audience.

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      • Dreaming_Novaling@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I’m upset, the tech and privacy communities need to step it up cause I’ve never seen this fact. I kinda knew URLs had a lot of junk, but I never knew what could be removed.

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  • JackbyDev@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Not everything after the ? can be removed. Obvious and well known example, YouTube videos use the video as part of the query parameters (on non shortened URLs). youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

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    • hacktheegg@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Fun fact, YouTube has backwards comparability for its video links, so youtube.com/w/dQw4w9WgXcQ will go to the same video (granted, it will change format to the up to date one, but it is one way to go to a yt video without URL arguments)

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      • cley_faye@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Even better: youtu.be/PtSGclOlVmg

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    • burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I judge people based on whether they can understand youtube (which you should be changing to invidious or something else anyway) urls. It’s a useful and very short way to see if people have ever paid attention to repeated patterns. The moment I saw the t=XYs, I was amazed.

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  • BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    ClearURLs was my go to on Firefox, I think it’s still great but it gave me trouble on a couple of sites because it modified the url in the address bar (it was like AliExpress and shopee, Chinese e-commerce sites that look like a web dev vomited, so I hardly blame ClearURLs)

    Firefox also now has “copy clean link” when you right click the url bar which also works great.

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    • darthelmet@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Thanks. I didn’t know about that. Although I tried doing it and the option was grayed out. Any idea what might be wrong? Do I need to change a setting or something? This was on youtube.

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      • BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I don’t think YouTube actually has tracking parameters in the url normally, but if you use the share button then the youtu.be link will include the video ID as well tracking. But it looks like you can kinda use it there too if you select the link with tracking, it seems to detect that it’s a link and offers the clean link option when you right click it.

        If you go to an Amazon item page then you should see it available when right clicking the address bar.

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    • benignintervention@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I also use URLCheck on my phone. Made it the default browser and it pops up with options to clean the link and choose which browser to open it with

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    • dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Firefox also now has “copy clean link” when you right click the url bar which also works great.

      I am an avid and exclusive user of Firefox and I never discovered this because it never would have occurred to me in a million years to right click the URL bar for any reason. So I’ll be damned; there it is. (I always just lasso the relevant part myself and hit ctrl + c.)

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  • gizmonicus@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I usually change the parameters to things like utm_source=yourmom, just for kicks.

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  • Shape4985@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    There is also copy clean link option in firefox and brave

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  • dan@upvote.au ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    This is kinda true but also kinda fear mongering. UTM parameters are just to track where you clicked the link from, and don’t contain anything about you personally.

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    • ericatty@infosec.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      As someone who has link tracking in our business, yes, some of the stuff after the ? isn’t nefarious tracking, like the utm mentioned above.

      All the “list-unsubscribe” options you may have noticed starting about a year ago, are actually required to be there for any company that sends out any kind of email newsletter over a certain threshold. (Lists around 5k or more)

      If the unsubscribe links aren’t there, with the required url-encoded parameters (along with some other requirements with DNS) the email will not be delivered to any of the majors (google, yahoo/aol, hotmail, big ISPs) and we get blocked.

      The unsubscribe parameters are being tracked, yes, but we have to have them so we can unsubscribe you “in one click” We are not allowed to require you to sign in to unsubscribe you. (Not that we ever did that, but now there must be a one-click option.)

      (We used to just be two clicks to unsubscribe off an encoded link. Click -> this you? If yes, click -> you are now unsubscribed. Or sign-in and manage subscriptions without an encoded link.)

      Again, the point is that not all url encoded tracking is nefarious. Some of it is now required to try and minimize spam and nefarious emails.

      Source: …postmark-testing.com/…/2024-gmail-yahoo-email-re…

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  • diemartin@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    • URLCheck
    • URLSanitizer

    Also relevant:

    • LinkSheet
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    • nieminen@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Also leon

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  • RagingRobot@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    They are called query parameters and they are used for other things as well. So you can remove the ones you see similar to these but sometimes there might be important stuff you need to get the page to load in those parameters.

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    • bandwidthcrisis@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      After removing them (or even if there was nothing to remove) I test out links I’m sending in a private browser window to check that they would work for other people.

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  • artiman@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    this isn't a shitpost this community is being dragged through the mud by non-shitposts

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    • Saledovil@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Actually, it’s a a bit of a shitpost. Anything after the ‘?’ is an argument for the html request. Can and is used for tracking, but is also used for website functionality.

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      • Master167@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        IMO, any developer who uses URL parameters for required functionality is short sighted. They should use the path as required parameters.

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    • cley_faye@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      It’s shitty advice masquerading as something useful and/or insightful.

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  • MissingInteger@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Add this URL Shortener filterlist to uBlock Origin.
    This removes the fast majority of these query parameters.

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    • qarbone@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I honestly couldn’t determine if it was a typo or not, but it’s not “fast” but “vast majority.”

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      • Sidhean@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        my brain autocorrected it to “vast,” but I like “fast majority” as a phrase

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    • Sarothazrom@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Can I ask how do use this? Do I just copy/paste this into the “my filters” tab in uBlock? ;

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      • oatscoop@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Go to the “Filters” tab in the dashboard. At the bottom of the list click “Import” and paste the URL ( raw.githubusercontent.com/…/LegitimateURLShortene… ) in the box. Then click “Apply” to save it.

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  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Legitimate concern, called URL tracking. There’s browser extensions for that.

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  • Memetic@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    It’s not always nefarious.

    I work for a non-profit. Sometimes it’s helpful to understand the click rate on a mass message.

    We don’t provide data to third parties and use a self-hosted oss analytics platform.

    So I think folks should understand tracking and manage it but it’s not all bad. Just almost always bad. Really bad.

    Worse: a lot of links can’t be fixed or modified since they use click-through services to obscure the destination.

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    • Soulcreator@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I’m a web developer in a marketing department and agreed UTM tags aren’t really nefarious. We generally use them to track campaigns, and to see the effectiveness of our paid campaigns. (As in how much of a return on investment did we have, are people continuing to traverse the site after hitting the landing page, etc) That said those codes generally don’t give us any info about the user other than what parts of the site you are hitting, (which we can find out through other means anyway). There are tools out there which can give us a creepy amount of data about the users on the site, but UTMs aren’t it.

      Removing them when sending out links is good practice as you probably only really need a fraction of the characters in order to get to the site, so your links are cleaner, you look like less of an idiot, and ironically marketers will end up having cleaner data (I doubt you care about this, but it’s true.)

      That said, if you really want to prevent sites from getting your data when browsing turning off JavaScript in your browser would probably have the biggest impact.

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  • princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Everything after the “?” symbol can be removed without issue

    youtube.com/watch?v=XfELJU1mRMg >>> youtube.com/watch

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  • Hudell@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    “everything after the ? Symbol can be removed without issue” is a bold statement to make. Reminds me when the TV news had a specialist telling people to look at urls before clicking and check if it ends with “.php” as that would mean it is a virus.

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    • REDACTED@infosec.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Youtube.com/watch?v=[Video ID]

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    • SuluBeddu@feddit.it ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Difference being that the ? in URLs separates the resource from additional information

      So unless some website decides to identify the resource in those query field (for example search results pages in a web search), you are generally safe

      In any case, messaging apps will try to navigate to the site to create a caption for your message, and that can be a way to check if it works or not

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  • don@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    You all got Rick-rolled btw

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    • PunnyName@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      XcQ all the way!

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      • don@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        “XcQ, LINK STAYS BLUE! 😁

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    • spankmonkey@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Only if they typed it in, but I appreciated a recognizable link!

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    • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      And you just lost the game

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  • rumba@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Check out this cool video

    www.youtube.com/watch?

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  • Samsy@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    There are URL shortener Apps on F-Droid. Simple share the link to this app and get a short link without this privacy mess.

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  • moosetwin@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    hey you, yeah you, you’re finally awake

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  • moseschrute@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Telling people to remove them isn’t very practical. Educating people is step 1, but step 2 is finding a browser extension or browser that scrubs the identifiers from URLs. You will inevitably forget to remove the tracker from the url if you do it manually.

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  • ramble81@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I always do this when I post YouTube links. Be damned if I want to be associated with you lot! (Seriously though, it’s a good idea to do)

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  • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Just a reminded, if you have the Clipboard Manager called Ditto

    You can strip those right out of your pasted URLs, even many at once !

    Image

    (for windows users, for linux there is github.com/farzher/clipman but it lacks that particular feature at this time )

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  • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Add made up data to those parameters. Like source=ericsschmidtspedoisland

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  • nieminen@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I use an app called “Leon URL Cleaner” from F-Droid. Does a really good job removing tracking params, and only adds one extra step to sharing a URL.

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  • lemmyknow@lemmy.today ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Thing I find funny is when the url seems to indicate you came from an email or something. Now if I share it, anyone who clicks will also count as coming from an email. Dumass ruining your own statistics

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  • NutWrench@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    This. The question marks and ampersand in youtube URLs are separators and can include your entire playlist, as well. If you just want to share the video, then everything from the first ampersand onwards can go.

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