PSA WHEN SHARING LINKS: Please remove anything that comes after a `?` in the url. It is a tracker and puts any Pede that clicks the link at risk of being doxxed by big tech.
Not quite. See mod comment.
Please be careful out there Pedes. ALWAYS check and clean your links before sharing.
EDIT:
Getting a lot of comments about valid use of query parameters (parts with the ? in a url).
It is true, not every query param needs to be removed from a url.
But if you are sharing anything from twitter, fb etc, please remove it (feel free to test the link before hand to make sure it is working)
I wish I could @ everyone in this thread. This is only true in certain circumstances.
Read this first:
https://www.quora.com/What-does-a-question-mark-do-in-a-URL
Read this second:
https://www.swiftlocalsolutions.com/blog/what-are-google-utm-parameters-and-why-are-they-important
Example:
https://twitter.com/RadioGenova/status/1561749852563951620
?cxt=HBwWiMC-4ezNuawrAAAA&cn=ZmxleGlibGVfcmVjcw%3D%3D&refsrc=email
? is a query param and may or may not be used for tracking. Usually news sites will use them to track referral campaigns (e.g. ref= twitter; fb-post, etc). They generally cannot be used for doxxing purposes. They CAN be used to exploit sites with XSS vulnerabilities.
However it is almost always safe to remove for the majority of sites in use.
HOWEVER, most people do not utilize marketing script / cookie tracking blockers (ublock, ghostery, brave browser) near enough. This CAN result in tracking and subsequent doxxing via 1 by 1px "beacons" loaded from Facebook, Google, and other 3rd party integrations on websites and emails.
Always use a VPN and/or TOR.
Use a spam or 10 min email for anon activities.
DO NOT use Google.
DO NOT use Gmail.
DO NOT use Facebook.
DO NOT USE ALEXA / GOOGLE HOME / GOOGLE ASSISTANT / CHROMECAST !!
Block all trackers, ads, pop-ups.
Safest thing to do is copy + paste links without the ? and following text in the URL instead of clicking on it.
Anything after "ref" on an Amazon link tracks you too, fyi.
We also need to be using Nitter instead of Twitter. Even if you have to reload the page a few times when its messing up.
No one does this, and I feel like I'm nagging everyone when I point it out.
And....there is an extension to Brave called 'Nitter Redirect' that automagically goes to the Nitter link of a Twitter link.
Does this work on mobile?
Not that I'm opposed, but I really don't see a reason why people cant take less than 10 seconds to edit their URLs prior to sharing.
Especially because if it saves someone who doesn't know Nitter or about the extension, from being tracked.
I have found the nitter.it mirror is generally faster and less popular if that helps
Good to know. Thank you
Many places, big ones especially, will not accept a ten minute email for exactly this reason.
There is nothing stopping you from using a spam account for those cases.
E.g. [email protected]
What's a 10 min email? Is there a way to only use a VPN when browsing the web without having to turn it on/off? (Sometimes I play video games and don't want the lag due to routing through a VPN.)
I think he is referring to the email address generation sites that are active for 10 minutes so you can register something before they expire and there is nothing to link it back to you
Ooo what would be some other sites that people could make use of? A list would be awesome (not just from yourself)
There is a privacy community on here at https://communities.win/c/Privacy which has some links. I wish it was more active so maybe this post might encourage people to engage in this more.
Oh awesome! Thanks heaps :)
Yeah hope so, I mean I didn't know about. Perhaps post it as its own as a reminder. Obvs up to you
One way is to create a virtual machine (VM). You can connect to your VPN from inside the VM and do all your anon browsing from inside of it.
Also, many VPNs provide access to SOCKS5 proxy servers. If your provider does, you can also open a SSH SOCKS tunnel and route your browser traffic through said tunnel.
Here's some tutorials and more information on that-
https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-setup-ssh-socks-tunnel-for-private-browsing/
https://nordvpn.com/blog/socks5-proxy/
SOCKS5 isn't as secure as a VPN (packets aren't encrypted so ISP can perform deep packet inspection) but for simple browsing, it works nearly the same as long as you set up a tunnel.
And for your purposes, doesn't slow down your gaming.
thanks mate
If your VPN supports split tunneling technically this can be done but you would need to record what network requests your games make and add those to the list not going through VPN.
I like to change the referral campaigns especially on Amazon to 'trump hats' or some other silliness. My hope is someone somewhere is wondering how I got from trump hats to light bulbs or whatever
What would be good alternatives or ways to use things that require Gmail? What is a 10 min email?
https://www.sharklasers.com/
I use a combination of protonmail (not saying this is the best, I am wary about CERN connections) + a standing spam only email account
https://10minutemail.com/
That's not always true, and most usually isn't, actually.
If you're worried about trackers though, block them at the source via DNS, AdBlock, or a browser with strict privacy.
AdGuard + Brave Browser
i'll be downloading that as soon as I can get around to closing the 50 tabs i have open
This. If it matters to you, take care of your end. I don't need to pretend I'm safe from prying eyes when there are so many other ways for big brother to track my data.
Better to know that you're being watched than to foolishly assume you're smart enough to hide perfectly. At least now I know everything they know about me.
Thanks for posting this ... I learned this here a while back; never knew before
it could also be a query like determining resolution of an image but its better to be safe than sorry.
I think the reason why people get doxxed is because they use Google/ Facebook etc CIA sites from the same browser where they use "censored sites". It has to do with your 3rd party cookies, and your IP address.
The "?" after most URLs (url params), especially twitter, youtube etc indicate where you got the link from - as in who gave you the link. It establishes connection between the user and the person/organisation giving the link. Its used to analytics.
I typically remove the url params before posting the link to others, but for the most part clicking on them will not put you in any danger. If it is coming from a site you dont like, then removing the url params ensures that you are not contributing to their statistics.
If the URL is coming from a patriot site, you might want to give them the stats.
Did not know that. Thank you!!!
Big tech commies are scum
Agreed - learned something new.
Many thanks 🙏
Good to know - will do this from now on.
This isn't hard and fast everything after the "?", many sites handle their URLs differently.
Case in point, YouTube, if you remove everything after the "?" you only end up with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Where the intended link was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQunC9jniqw
Thank you for this useful bit of information.
This url has no question mark:
some.url/article/12
But it is essentially the same as:
some.url?article=12
Should we trim everything that comes after / in the url too?
/sarcasm
Getting a lot of comments about valid use of query parameters (parts with the ? in a url).
It is true, not every query param needs to be removed from a url.
But if you are sharing anything from twitter, fb etc, please remove it (feel free to test the link before hand to make sure it is working)
That is a good idea, i use the addon "ClearURLs" which helps remove these automatically from links.
as a coder i am rolling my fking eyes so hard
true sometimes. but like....
whateverDotcom/page.php?story=TheThingYouWannaRead&showAd=false&emailSubscribe=no
Yeah this post is fuckin retarded and this is horrible advice
Query parameters are used in some capacity on nearly 100% of sites
Once you combine it with the feedback and suggestions in the comments, it's useful information.
Sure, this doesn't apply to 100% of links, but it does to links to MSM articles obtained from Facebook as well as tracking IDs on direct Twitter posts.
The fuckin retarded part is you don't need all that garbage to get to the intended site.
this is not true. 99% of query params are going to be for your user experience, with nothing to do with tracking. 1% of query params are for tracking. you just need to be familiar with where you are sharing links from, and know to remove specific sections from query params that are for tracking
can you write some code to "clean" URLs? Or a browser add-on? Either could be pretty handy, some URLs are severely bloated...
Similar tools to what you are describing already exist and are easily googleable, there are chrome extensions etc..... oh and before you lecture me on muh Google, it's just CIA. Literally the CIA. I'm not scared of the fucking CIA. I value my usage of their extremely just crazy-powerful search engine more than I value my privacy 🥱 but only because I am not nor would I ever be a target of the CIA.
Cool, I hadn't thought about until this post, but I typically will go and purge the crap from URLs.
No lectures from me, I was Chrome until I got a MS Surface Go and switched to Edge being Chrome ran like crap on it. After a few months I'm liking it more than Chrome, and it runs great on my puny tablet-top.
As a web developer for over 20 years. I use ? marks for parameters I wish to send from one page to another. Sure, I suppose it could be used for nefarious purposes but there's tons of different ways of tracking.
Wow, not tech savvy so wow
Tagging for great info!
Especially you do not want "fbclid" or "gclid" in the URL string of crap, so definitely remove that
fbclid = facebook click identifier
gclid = google click identifier
Didn't know this. Just shared a link and took it off. Thanks!
Please do this. also if it's from faecesbook they url-encode the link, so paste it into notepad, replace "%2F" with "/" (ctrl+H: Replace All) and fix the "https:" prefix. after that's done, you'll see the "?" so you can lop off the tracker.
Thank you mods whoever stickied this and thank you pede for posting this. This is a very common problem on twitter links.
I try and shorten URLs down to their base before posting, but I'm on a laptop. I know there are many mobile users here which isn't nearly as easy.
I found a extension that removes this data automatically.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clearurls/lckanjgmijmafbedllaakclkaicjfmnk/related?hl=en
GET A VPN
A VPN won't stop you from passing on ? parameters.
Not always, sometimes there are valid parameters for a url after a ?. The key is to remiving just the tracker parameters.
Thank you for stating this. I forget too often how much others don't know about this stuff.
I get that, but as a general rule of thumb it doesn't need to be there for anything that comes from an unsafe source (i.e big tech/MSM shit)
You don't know what you're talking about.
I use start times, too. But it's easy to see in the form of &t=330s or whatever.
Bottom line: people need to observe URLs and understand how they work.
I can give you an example.
https://qagg.news/?q=ncswic
Take off everything after the ? and you will not see the Q post I am trying to show you.
You can always test the link in a separate window and see if removing everything after the ? is a problem. In most cases, it isn't.
In the case of your example, knowing that "q" is a variable which stands for query helps you to parse the reason it's contained in the url.
And as others have stated, ClearUrls is a browser plugin that automatically strips tracker urls from a link while preserving the variables that actually are important.
P.S. It's now https://qaggregator.news/?q=ncswic