- Mar 29, 2018
- 4,840
@SeriousHoax turned me on to this neat little extension, which I've been with using on its own and in combination with other extensions. This is an actively developed extension that is updated regularly. Just recently got an update to v. 1.15.0 which added a couple more rules. It looks like the developer is considering adding a couple of neat featues, including eTag blocking and others. I support this developer because he's young and appears commited to this project. Here's an overview, for your dining pleasure. Enjoy!

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ClearURLs is an add-on based on the new WebExtensions technology and is optimized for Firefox and Chrome based browsers.
This extension will automatically remove tracking elements from URLs to help protect your privacy when browse through the Internet, which is regularly updated by us and can be found here.
Application
Many websites use tracking elements in the URL (e.g. Example Domain) to mark your online activity. All that tracking code is not necessary for a website to be displayed or work correctly and can therefore be removed—that is exactly what ClearURLs does.
Another common example are Amazon URLs. If you search for a product on Amazon you will see a very long URL, such as:
Indeed most of the above URL is tracking code. Once ClearURLs has cleaned the address, it will look like this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/exampleProduct
Features
Reasoning for needed permissions can be found under here.
Screenshot
CI/CD Artifacts Download (for Firefox- and Chrome-Dev only)
Here you can download the packed files for the Firefox- and Chrome-Dev:
Firefox
Chrome
Test
If you want to test whether ClearURLs works correctly on your system, you can go to this test page: ClearURLs test page
Contribute
If you have any suggestions or complaints, please create an issue.
Translate ClearURLs
You want to help translating ClearURLs into many languages? – Nice
You can choose between two options to contribute. You can create a merge request, or you can use the POEditor to translate ClearURLs.
Hint: The description field in the translation files are only an information for what the translation is used. It is not necessary to translate the description field; in the most cases it is empty.
Merge request
If you want to create a merge request, you must open the path _locales/en/messages.json in the ClearURLs repo and translate the english terms into terms of your language. Once you have translated all the terms, you make a pull request of your translation. Please push your translation into the folder _locales/{country code}/messages.json.
POEditor
Projects that use parts of ClearURLs
Reasoning for needed permissions you can find under this discussion.
Copyright
We use some third-party scripts in our add-on. The authors and licenses are listed below.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
ClearURLs is an add-on based on the new WebExtensions technology and is optimized for Firefox and Chrome based browsers.
This extension will automatically remove tracking elements from URLs to help protect your privacy when browse through the Internet, which is regularly updated by us and can be found here.
Application
Many websites use tracking elements in the URL (e.g. Example Domain) to mark your online activity. All that tracking code is not necessary for a website to be displayed or work correctly and can therefore be removed—that is exactly what ClearURLs does.
Another common example are Amazon URLs. If you search for a product on Amazon you will see a very long URL, such as:
Indeed most of the above URL is tracking code. Once ClearURLs has cleaned the address, it will look like this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/exampleProduct
Features
- Removes tracking from URLs automatically in the background
- Blocks some common ad domains (optional)
- Has a built-in tool to clean up multiple URLs at once
- Supports redirection to the destination, without tracking services as middleman
- Adds an entry to the context menu so that links can be copied quickly and cleanly
- Blocks hyperlink auditing, also known as ping tracking (see also this article)
- Prevents tracking injection over history API (see also: The replaceState() method)
- Prevents Google from rewriting the search results (to include tracking elements)
- Prevents Yandex from rewriting the search results (to include tracking elements)
Reasoning for needed permissions can be found under here.
Screenshot

CI/CD Artifacts Download (for Firefox- and Chrome-Dev only)
Here you can download the packed files for the Firefox- and Chrome-Dev:
Firefox
Chrome
Test
If you want to test whether ClearURLs works correctly on your system, you can go to this test page: ClearURLs test page
Contribute
If you have any suggestions or complaints, please create an issue.
Translate ClearURLs
You want to help translating ClearURLs into many languages? – Nice
You can choose between two options to contribute. You can create a merge request, or you can use the POEditor to translate ClearURLs.
Hint: The description field in the translation files are only an information for what the translation is used. It is not necessary to translate the description field; in the most cases it is empty.
Merge request
If you want to create a merge request, you must open the path _locales/en/messages.json in the ClearURLs repo and translate the english terms into terms of your language. Once you have translated all the terms, you make a pull request of your translation. Please push your translation into the folder _locales/{country code}/messages.json.
POEditor
Projects that use parts of ClearURLs
- Uroute used ClearURLs to filter/clean URL before launching browser
- ghacks-user.js
- Awesome Humane Tech List
- ClearURLs is part of Mozilla's recommended extensions program
Reasoning for needed permissions you can find under this discussion.
Copyright
We use some third-party scripts in our add-on. The authors and licenses are listed below.
- WebExtension browser API Polyfill | Copyright by Mozilla | MPL-2.0
- Bootstrap v4.3.1 | Copyright 2011-2016 Twitter, Inc. | MIT
- jQuery v3.4.1 | Copyright JS Foundation and other contributors | MIT
- sha256.jquery.plugin | Copyright 2003, Christoph Bichlmeier | MIT | GPLv2
- DataTables v1.10.20 | Copyright (c) 2008-2015 SpryMedia Limited | MIT
- Popper.js v1.16.0 | Copyright (c) 2016 Federico Zivolo and contributors | MIT
- Bootstrap Colorpicker v3.2.0 | Copyright (c) 2017 Javi Aguilar | MIT
- Font Awesome v5.12.0 | Copyright (c) @fontawesome | Font Awesome Free License
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