Cleaning Up Weblinks - Stop All and Sundry Tracking You Around the Internet
Reboot Privacy Tip
Difficulty; Easy
Effort; Minimal
NOTE; Post contains long web links, don't be put off, this is intentional and the point of the post 😉
🔗 Cleaning Up Links 🔗
Did you know, clicking on a link shared by others can track you or pay the sharer a kick-back?
Today's tip focuses on what to look for and how to remove trackers and referrals hidden in plain sight.
🔍Link Trackers🔍
As a general rule, if someone shares a link and you notice a question mark (?) somewhere in the middle this indicates the link is likely to track you.
Lets see some examples;
An X post regarding chemicals in Flour was shared on an awakened group.
https://x.com/KSCUBKEE/status/1977078950380622009?t=y2JfUtR7s3_bNRxNt3vE8g&s=19
Notice that after the long string of numbers in the middle, there is a ?. Anything after this ? is completely unnecessary and only serves the purpose of tracking your movements.
So, we shorten the link to https://x.com/KSCUBKEE/status/1977078950380622009
It looks far tidier and still works, without you being tracked.
Lets see a Youtube link, infamous for tracking their users, they are Google after all.
This video of the British Army was posted in an very prominent Telegram group for forward thinking folk
https://www.youtube.com/live/HnwBz2KhjbU?si=RXsAQQ25SfnH9bvo
Find the ? and remove everything after it to avoid being tracked.
Going to an ''awakened'' event or protest listed on Eventbrite?
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1414982664239?aff=oddtdtcreator
The ? again peaks our interest but this time the tracker is a little different. You can see an ''aff='' after it. In other cases you'll see ''REF='' or simply 'r='. This is short for ''affiliate'' or ''referral'' and can indicate the person sharing this link is getting a small financial reward for every person who interacts with the link.
Link to try yourself….it's a long one!
https://billetto.co.uk/e/stand-in-the-night-the-light-christmas-bash-tickets-1679966?bref=eyJzIjoiYmlsbGV0dG8gYWR2ZXJ0aXNpbmciLCJtIjoiYmlsbGV0dG8iLCJjIjoic2hhcmUiLCJjbyI6Ijgtb3BzLUdCIiwidCI6MTc2MDQ2NDc0NH0%3D
Don't think that hidden links are safe either, copy the hyperlink (right-click, copy) and paste it into your address bar to see the full link to check for tracking.
This rule can be applied in most cases but sometimes you may still be unsure so to take the guesswork out of the equation bookmark a free open source link cleaner.
A great example of one is Linkcleaner.
Simply copy/paste the link and it automatically removes the junk leaving a nice clean link which can be shared directly from the site or copy/pasted to it's destination.
You can also install browser extensions to do the cleaning automatically. For Firefox based users use CleanURLs.
Google Chrome based browsers have had all their link cleaner extensions removed because, well, Google love to track you as we know!
The internet is a cesspool of greed these days and the way in which most of us are followed is via tracking. Check your groups and see if you can spot some dirty links….you won't need to look for long. Then question why others are making money from your actions and tracking you around the so-called free and open internet without your knowledge or consent.
Reboot Privacy encourage you all to starve the beast and disconnect from Big Tech!
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