ClearURLs : Automatically Remove Tracking Elements From URLs

ClearURLs is an add-on based on the new WebExtensions technology and is optimized for Firefox and Chrome based browsers.

This extension will automatically remove tracking elements from URLs to help protect your privacy when browse through the Internet, which is regularly updated by us and can be found here.

Application

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—that is exactly what ClearURLs does.

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. Once ClearURLs has cleaned the address, it will look like this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/exampleProduct

Features

• Removes tracking from URLs automatically in the background
• Blocks some common ad domains (optional)
• Has a built-in tool to clean up multiple URLs at once
• Supports redirection to the destination, without tracking services as middleman
• Adds an entry to the context menu so that links can be copied quickly and cleanly
• Blocks hyperlink auditing, also known as ping tracking (see also this article)
• Prevents ETag tracking
• Prevents tracking injection over history API (see also: The replaceState() method)
• Prevents Google from rewriting the search results (to include tracking elements)
• Prevents Yandex from rewriting the search results (to include tracking elements)

Permissions

Reasoning for needed permissions can be found under here.

Screenshot

CI/CD Artifacts Download (for Firefox- and Chrome-Dev only)

Here you can download the packed files for the Firefox- and Chrome-Dev:

Test

If you want to test whether ClearURLs works correctly on your system, you can go to this test page: https://test.clearurls.xyz/