cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/31187638

Earlier today I came across a Reddit comment with a link to an Instagram post. The link had ?igsh= at the end.

When I clicked on the link, I got this popup. It had a name and profile photo that was different from that of the post being shared.

Join Firstname Lastname on Instagram

See photos, videos, and more from Firstname Lastname.

[ Open Instagram ]

not now

I avoid link trackers. However, I did not realize it was this bad.

To my knowledge, TikTok does the same thing and lists the name of the person that shared the link. Assuming this increases engagement, any website could enable such a feature, even on old links that you shared in the past.

You should manually remove any trackers before sharing, or use an app for it.

  • Ephera@lemmy.ml
    0·
    17 days ago

    Mind that just removing everything after the question mark can break the link, because these parameters can also do useful things.
    For example, if you use the search functionality on a webpage, you’ll typically be redirected onto a URL with a parameter containing your search query.

    And Firefox also has this tracking parameter removal built-in these days. In the right-click menu, you can select “Copy Link Without Site Tracking”.
    I cannot say, though, if this works better than CleanURLs. Because these parameters can do useful things, it’s tricky to automatically remove them without breaking links.