ClearURLs

Easy way to improve online privacy without any effort

Cleans up URLs and makes web page connections a bit faster, works well and not redundant with other add-ons like uBlock Origin, deserves to be better known.

It's an excellent extension. It's very easy to use.

It should be set-and-forget, but unfortunately both Filter & the Extension itself seem to be poorly maintained and have now largely stagnated at least from user's perspective. For example: • It breaks Google Oauth login, Amazon Oauth login, links opened from Zoom meeting chat in Zoom web client for months, along with other instances of it breaking popular sites. So Google Drive login will be broken by ClearURLs. People reported this for months and it still hasn't been fixed. Yes, I can avoid these, but some average users can't. So it will mostly be either broken sites or no privacy at all for them. • No whitelist. So you disable the extension as a whole then forget to turn it back on. • Unlike popular adblockers, like uBlock Origin, ClearURLs extension still only allows using only one filter list at a time. So other contributors can't really plug the holes. There are many opportunities for dedicated filters tailored to each user's preference that should be possible, like removing language parameters. • Bad regional sites coverage. Mainly as a result of being made to use only one list at a time, so regional filters & other 3rd party filters can't thrive. • The extension does not allow custom rules, so you can't plug the hole yourself. • There are no repo links in the extension itself to report issues. So issues may go unreported. • Both GitHub & GitLab extension repo seems pretty dead. Been months since last commits. And the "Extension Rewrite" pinned announcement on GitHub is still pinned 3 years later.

It's a great extension, I recommend it if you're OK with turning it off & troubleshoot broken sites from time to time. But I hope the extension either be better maintained or have a better developer pick up this idea.

If you're "the go-to tech support guy" do not install this to people's PC. I've recommended & installed this extension, along many other privacy-preserving extensions, to many PCs of friends, distant friends, family members both old & young, and many other tech novices some of whom I now don't have contact with. I have unwittingly broken their apps & websites, including Google Drive & Zoom web client for them. They do not have the knowledge to troubleshoot, and they'll never know this thing is the cause of it. It even took me a while to realize ClearURLs is the root cause.

While you can add similar functionality to uBlock Origin and avoid this addon entirely, I've tested both and noticed ClearURLs generally produces better results. A must have for improved privacy and convenience for copying urls.

Underappreciated extension. It pairs well with any ad blocker and prevents URL tracking.

It cleans URLs from tracking queries improving your privacy and gives you the option to copy cleaned links.