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TrackerZapper Mac app silently removes tracking parameters from links you copy

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Re: TrackerZapper Mac app silently removes tracking parameters from links you copy

#41
post #19
post #4

Shame that this couldn't exist on iOS, where I do the majority of copying and pasting of links. Thanks, Apple.

I built a similar Mac app that removes common trackers from clipboard links. It works on your iPhone with Apple's Universal Clipboard. Copy Cleaner macOS app https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1528299767

Universal Clipboard only works with iCloud, most of which is not e2e encrypted, and is thus not safe to have enabled.

Re: TrackerZapper Mac app silently removes tracking parameters from links you copy

#42
post #38
post #27

It's unusual to see the word "silently" used as a selling point these days. In headlines, it's almost always used in the context of some bad behavior and as such has taken on negative connotations for me. https://hn.algolia.com/?q=silently I plugged the title of this post into a few online sentiment analysis tools and they both rated it as having negative sentiment. If the author sees this, you might want to swap it…

"Transparently" is a conceptually similar word that had positive connotations

Or in this case ”automatically”.

Re: TrackerZapper Mac app silently removes tracking parameters from links you copy

#43
post #27

It's unusual to see the word "silently" used as a selling point these days. In headlines, it's almost always used in the context of some bad behavior and as such has taken on negative connotations for me. https://hn.algolia.com/?q=silently I plugged the title of this post into a few online sentiment analysis tools and they both rated it as having negative sentiment. If the author sees this, you might want to swap it…

>If the author sees this, you might want to swap it out for another word like "automatically" in the readme.

On the other hand, giving up on using "silently" in a positive light does nothing to push back against its negative connotation and cedes the word to the negative Nancys. The author doesn't appear to be trying to make a living from this and I appreciate their using language they want to use whether or not it's approved by the marketing department.

Re: TrackerZapper Mac app silently removes tracking parameters from links you copy

#44
post #2

The ClearURLs addon [1] also gives you the in-browser option to copy "clean link location," as they call it. [1] https://github.com/ClearURLs/Addon

I tried this recently and promptly uninstalled after discovering Google search result links were still hijacked to go through a tracker redirect.

FWIW as a follow-up, this extension does seem to clean google tracker redirects from search results:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-google...

Re: TrackerZapper Mac app silently removes tracking parameters from links you copy

#45
post #23

Does it really need to sit in my menubar?

I've never understood why apps get the final say on what goes in my menubar in macOS. Skype says I need a menubar icon; I say I don't. Why does Skype's opinion trump mine?

It would be nice if it were built into the OS, but especially when I had smaller screens on a laptop I found Bartender an invaluable application.

Re: TrackerZapper Mac app silently removes tracking parameters from links you copy

#46
post #27

It's unusual to see the word "silently" used as a selling point these days. In headlines, it's almost always used in the context of some bad behavior and as such has taken on negative connotations for me. https://hn.algolia.com/?q=silently I plugged the title of this post into a few online sentiment analysis tools and they both rated it as having negative sentiment. If the author sees this, you might want to swap it…

I wasn't happy with the use of "silently" but I kept forgetting to remove it. It's now been updated. Thanks for the feedback.

Re: TrackerZapper Mac app silently removes tracking parameters from links you copy

#47
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"name" is definitely not a good parameter to remove...

https://github.com/rknightuk/TrackerZapper/pull/8

Pull request has been merged and released as version 1.1.1 https://github.com/rknightuk/TrackerZapper/releases/tag/1.1....

Re: TrackerZapper Mac app silently removes tracking parameters from links you copy

#48

Does it really need to sit in my menubar?

That's what I was thinking. On top of that, if it's only a menubar app, why wouldn't you write it in some platform-agnostic language? I have a similar "toolbar sitter" app I wrote with a couple Rust crates and a free afternoon, and that compiles to Windows/Mac/Linux fine. I guess it's more of a Swift exercise than a full-fledged program.

You're right it was more of a project for me try out some stuff rather than having a plan to release an app for everyone.
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