I thought this was common knowledge but everyone was surprised. All you need to share a YouTube link is the white part. Everything else is tracking.
Some browsers/extensions also provide a clean URL that strips it.
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There’s a filter list for uBlock origin called “legitimate url shortener” that’ll remove that shit for you
Or e.g. URLCheck on Android
Only one caveat: if you see
&t=12sor&t=12m34sthat’s a timestamp, not tracking.Also, don’t forget: XcQ? Link stays blue.
What?
Lemmy has link preview, oops
Oh, the Rick Roll video?
Could be worse I guess
It’s a similar parameter to the ‘?si=’ methinks
Nah, if you see the link in the other reply to me, it goes to the Rick Roll video, and it ends in XcQ, makes sense for people to have trained themselves to avoid those links
XcQ? A great music vid for you.
The “si=” stands for Sus Identifier, so it’s no wonder.
I’m 99% sure that’s the Rick Roll link
I throw YT links into FreeTube, which most always plays them just fine. Works for me. YMMV.
But what kind of tracking? And is it really worth how much time it takes to clean the links manually?
it’s like literally half a second
https://linksanitizer.com/learn/what-is-the-si-parameter/
According to this, it’s a share identifier. It marks what source shared it and who used that share to view the video.
It helps them map who shares to who
There are tools for that.
This is Leon the cleaner.
Anyone know of any tools in the Apple ecosystem or URL based tools?
https://linkcleaner.app/ is a browser based one I use
How is opening an app or website easier than copying part of a link or deleting it after you paste it?
Check the app page and you will understand
(Though, i don’t like it as a method, i guess it may take less for some people but i move my fingers fast enough to delete it)
I guess that’s a fair point, I may just be confused based on my own limited understanding.
Is it as simple as deleting everything after the first 11 characters post / like in the picture? Is that universal to every YouTube link?
— Edit: tried it, it is totally that easy. Frustrating thing is if you paste a link into a text message on iPhone, it doesn’t let you edit the link directly there, you have to do it in another place first.
For iOS/iPadOS I use this one, works well for me:
https://apps.apple.com/de/app/trackless-links-url-pip/id6749830894
Apart from everything mentioned below, you post a single one of those here, and Google & friends instantly know basically everything about user ジン@quokk.au’s entire online life. Hope you’ve never upvoted a post critical of the regime.
If you are on Android, this app helps both ways - it can protect you when opening a link and when sharing a link. Available on Play Store and F-Droid.
URLCheck allows you to analyze (or share) urls before opening them.
Yeah. I’ve set it to be my default browser. Awesome indeed.
The tracking is used to identify the source user who shared the link - that is connected in the DB to the user who received and used the link. That connects their two digital footprints as far as the website is concerned. It’s one element that leads to strangely tenuous “people you may know” style lists. If you and the person you share with have totally separate online lives. The moment you share that link - everything YouTube (Google) knows about both of you is connected. If one of you has shared your contact lists, your phone number, address etc is potentially now connected to you even if you’ve never posted it to anything online. It doesn’t take much for someone to be linked to 1000’s of people in a chain reaction of connections started by a single shared link that hasn’t been anonymised.
