I see you took the screenshot on your phone, I just tried it on mine and had no issues getting the proper link, even after updating it as I wrote this comment.
Can you describe more about where you encountered it?
It’s only for links shared via WhatsApp for some reason. Not sure how they know you’re sharing to WhatsApp… (Edit: firefox implements a custom share widget instead of the one provided by the OS, so they get a callback when the user selects the target)
OP is wrong about the “unique” part tho, I get the same URL as them.
Weird. I’m on 145.0.1 (Build #2016126887), I even tried going to arstechnica.com in case it only happened on certain websites, but the urls Firefox shares to whatsapp are totally normal for me. Some sort of A/B testing?
Yes because the option to remove the advertisement link is inside Firefox. It might be that meta and Mozilla got some monetary agreement and this is even worse
Don’t use Firefox, as in, don’t use the official Mozilla release, even that has gone to shit. Pretty much everything has gone to shit, in terms of search results and web browsers. I use librewolf (a fork of firefox) on my laptop and Ironfox on my phone they both by default come with the security features by default. No AI generation built in the browser, no Firefox suggestions, no tracking, none of it. I’ve also stopped using standard search engines like google or DDG and replaced it with marginalia search. This combination has allowed me to eliminate AI generated content and tracking from my browsing experience.
It’s Firefox, and there’s a new “sharing” option in the menu that contains a toggle to disable this
How exactly are you getting these in the first place? I just tried to share the url but it didn’t do anything odd.
Here is a sanitized Firefox fork https://librewolf.net/
Librewolf my beloved
There’s Waterfox as well, but I still prefer Librewolf.
Why’s that? Asking as a Firefox user.
Does this happen when you copypaste the URL?
Because messing with the clipboard is a really scary thing.
No, only when using the share button
I see you took the screenshot on your phone, I just tried it on mine and had no issues getting the proper link, even after updating it as I wrote this comment.
Can you describe more about where you encountered it?
It’s only for links shared via WhatsApp for some reason. Not sure how they know you’re sharing to WhatsApp… (Edit: firefox implements a custom share widget instead of the one provided by the OS, so they get a callback when the user selects the target)
OP is wrong about the “unique” part tho, I get the same URL as them.
Just tried sharing to WhatsApp, using the Firefox share button, on android. Link is normal.
Well I tried it before commenting, and I see the same thing as OP… I’m on Firefox stable 145.0.1.
Weird. I’m on 145.0.1 (Build #2016126887), I even tried going to arstechnica.com in case it only happened on certain websites, but the urls Firefox shares to whatsapp are totally normal for me. Some sort of A/B testing?
Ah interesting!
That explains why I don’t see it!
If the link it’s the same for everyone then they should have definitely used firefox.com or a dedicated domain, not domain.tld/garbage
They detect sharing on WhatsApp and inject the tracking link only on that case. It didn’t do this yesterday so there’s a chance it’s on a/b testing
You sure it’s not WhatsApp that’s link-shortening?
Yes because the option to remove the advertisement link is inside Firefox. It might be that meta and Mozilla got some monetary agreement and this is even worse
Ah, I missed that part of the conversation
Don’t use Firefox, as in, don’t use the official Mozilla release, even that has gone to shit. Pretty much everything has gone to shit, in terms of search results and web browsers. I use librewolf (a fork of firefox) on my laptop and Ironfox on my phone they both by default come with the security features by default. No AI generation built in the browser, no Firefox suggestions, no tracking, none of it. I’ve also stopped using standard search engines like google or DDG and replaced it with marginalia search. This combination has allowed me to eliminate AI generated content and tracking from my browsing experience.
DDG tracks its users? Is there any definitive proof of this?
There’s a ESR release.