You REALLY should remove the tracking codes from Youtube links now.
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@aesthr there is a setting to keep YouTube from sharing your account with the person you're sending the link. This does not remove the tracking parameter, but should keep you from accidentally leaking your account, in case you forget to remove the tracking
In the YouTube app on Android: If you click on the share button you should see a popup with something like "sending as [your channel]", clicking on your channel should lead you to an explanation with a link to the setting to deactivate it@aesthr I assume it's similar on iOS but I don't own one
(And the fact that you can deactivate it does not change the fact, that this is a shitty (and probably dangerous) feature and that making it opt-out (instead of opt-in) is a terrible decision!
And finding the right setting for the opt-out isn't trivial either, which obviously sucks)
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@aesthr Firefox has a Copy Clean Link option in its link context menu, which strips the "pp=" part of a youtube tracking url.
Unknown if it also strips "is="@batterpunts @aesthr It does.
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@sanityinc @eggg @aesthr fwiw, every youtu dot be link i see in the wild currently uses the opaque identifier for the global video id (sometimes with the tracking identifier after the question mark that you can strip in the same way). of course they could eventually start switching this to a slightly different opaque unique per-user identifier that looks similar to the video id and it would probably take people a while to notice, but they don’t seem to be doing it yet
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You REALLY should remove the tracking codes from Youtube links now.
They started showing a popup about who sent the link and offering a (maybe new) DM feature, potentially revealing your personal account name to anyone who opens the link.
@aesthr I noticed maybe a week ago that Facebook does the same. Quite uncomfortable.
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@aesthr
I'm foreseeing soon that the share button will no longer include the video URL but is a bespoke share link which is harder/not possible to reverse engineer / strip out the share metadata.Like, eventually we may have to tell people "search for these terms" if we want to share things untracked
> Like, eventually we may have to tell people "search for these terms" if we want to share things untracked
This won't be possible either, because apparently YT is frequently changing titles of videos (or rather give creators the option to do so).
Just insane!
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You REALLY should remove the tracking codes from Youtube links now.
They started showing a popup about who sent the link and offering a (maybe new) DM feature, potentially revealing your personal account name to anyone who opens the link.
@aesthr Fukkkkk me
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@janriemer @aesthr oh that's gross
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@sanityinc uh, no? the "share" feature in the web interface gives a
https://youtu.be/<video ID>?si=<junk>link, at least in my case (not logged in).@risc @sanityinc @aesthr sounds as though its already in a/b testing then
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@risc @sanityinc @aesthr sounds as though its already in a/b testing then
@eggg oh right, a/b.. would make sense ;w;
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@aesthr On android I can recommend url-checker to preview the url and control the parameters when opening an link on the client side. You can set it as your standard browser, then it will always display the url to open and has options to remove unwanted tracking parameters.
It is an extra step to open a link, so it can be inconvenient. But it can also save you from visiting sites you dislike before firing them up in a browser.
https://f-droid.org/packages/com.trianguloy.urlchecker
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.trianguloy.urlchecker
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You REALLY should remove the tracking codes from Youtube links now.
They started showing a popup about who sent the link and offering a (maybe new) DM feature, potentially revealing your personal account name to anyone who opens the link.
@aesthr Even worse because the person you sent the link to could send the same link, with the same tracking code, to other people you don't care about
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@sanityinc @eggg @aesthr fwiw, every youtu dot be link i see in the wild currently uses the opaque identifier for the global video id (sometimes with the tracking identifier after the question mark that you can strip in the same way). of course they could eventually start switching this to a slightly different opaque unique per-user identifier that looks similar to the video id and it would probably take people a while to notice, but they don’t seem to be doing it yet
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@barryallen2023 @joknopp @aesthr FB share embeds their "who sent it" ID into the codes with no easy "?..."
I paste my share link into a non-logged-in mobile browser, get rid of the "[Name] sent you this blah blah" pop over, and THEN you can copy the plain URL.
I don't share FB content much. It adds 2 steps but I don't really want them to know I shared with X and Y IRL friends.
I see more platforms adopting this more invasive method in the surveillance-heavy future.
@SlangC5326 @barryallen2023 @joknopp @aesthr
1. Don't use facebook
2. Don't log in on YouTube if sharing. -
You REALLY should remove the tracking codes from Youtube links now.
They started showing a popup about who sent the link and offering a (maybe new) DM feature, potentially revealing your personal account name to anyone who opens the link.
@aesthr@wandering.shop You can do that with Firefox: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-protection-firefox-desktop#w_copy-clean-link
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You REALLY should remove the tracking codes from Youtube links now.
They started showing a popup about who sent the link and offering a (maybe new) DM feature, potentially revealing your personal account name to anyone who opens the link.
@aesthr@wandering.shop
I am close to muting / blocking people who persistently refer me to EwwwTube rather than PeerTube.
Also to various bridges, constantly quoting the commercial crud...
I use non Commercial Search Engines and still try to get a vanilla link if I wish to post one.
OK maybe i'm missing out not watching the YT, but I can live with that. -
You REALLY should remove the tracking codes from Youtube links now.
They started showing a popup about who sent the link and offering a (maybe new) DM feature, potentially revealing your personal account name to anyone who opens the link.
@aesthr@wandering.shop a youtube url cleaner web extention is a must have now
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You REALLY should remove the tracking codes from Youtube links now.
They started showing a popup about who sent the link and offering a (maybe new) DM feature, potentially revealing your personal account name to anyone who opens the link.
@aesthr we could also send invidious links instead of direct YouTube links. That should really chap their ass.
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You REALLY should remove the tracking codes from Youtube links now.
They started showing a popup about who sent the link and offering a (maybe new) DM feature, potentially revealing your personal account name to anyone who opens the link.
@aesthr my browser is DuckDuckGo which blocks cookie pop-ups and tracking attempts. When I watch youtube through them I have no adverts breaking the video.
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you can anonymize the link by removing the part of the link after the “?”
(at least for youtube currently, this can be different on other platforms and may also change in the future)
@aesthr If you're on Desktop and use Firefox, it's simple. There's a "Copy Clean Link" command to copy a link without the tracking parameters.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-protection-firefox-desktop#w_copy-clean-link -
You REALLY should remove the tracking codes from Youtube links now.
They started showing a popup about who sent the link and offering a (maybe new) DM feature, potentially revealing your personal account name to anyone who opens the link.
@aesthr That might actually motivate some people to remove them from their URLs
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