DuckDuckGo Makes Link Sharing Easier by Preventing Tracking.
Maintaining privacy online is difficult . The playing field is extremely uneven: if you use apps and websites as intended, your every action is almost guaranteed to be tracked so companies can build a profile and show you targeted ads. This applies even to simple tasks like sharing links with friends: you may think you’re simply communicating privately, but as soon as you click “copy” on that link, trackers will attach themselves to the URL and begin tracking your actions.
It doesn’t have to be this way. There are many ways to prevent trackers from tracking you online —some more effective than others . And while removing tracking URLs from links isn’t new , it’s also not common knowledge. So when a company simplifies this process, I’m all for it, and today I congratulate DuckDuckGo.
DuckDuckGo now makes it easier to remove trackers from links on iPhone.
As another CNET Group site, ZDNet, notes , the DuckDuckGo iOS app now has a feature that automatically removes tracking elements from links. This means you can share links with friends, family, and colleagues without worrying about being tracked.
The “Copy Clean Link” feature doesn’t do anything you can’t do yourself. As ZDNet explains, it removes everything from the URL beginning with the “?” character—that is, all user tracking information. Without this data, you’re turning the URL into a “clean” link, so trackers won’t necessarily know you shared it. You can do this yourself by opening the URL and manually removing this text, but clicking “Copy Clean Link” is much more convenient.
Interestingly, this feature doesn’t appear when simply selecting a link or even pressing the “Share” button. Instead, you’ll need to open the link in DuckDuckGo, long-press the address bar, and select “Copy Clean Link.” The same option is available by tapping the three lines in the bottom-right corner, then scrolling down and selecting “Copy Clean Link.” If you simply select the URL and use iOS’s built-in “Copy” feature, you’ll get the full URL—including all trackers.
DuckDuckGo’s Copy Clean Link feature is currently only available on iOS.
Currently, DuckDuckGo’s “Copy Clean Link” feature is only available to iPhone users. That doesn’t mean users on other platforms are out of luck: as mentioned, you can manually remove all characters in the URL that begin with “?” to achieve the same effect. Of course, this is easier to do on a computer than on a mobile device.
If you need an alternative, Brave also has a “Copy Clean Link” option. It works similarly to DuckDuckGo—you can long-press the address bar on a webpage you’re already visiting, or, uniquely, long-press any link in the browser to access this option.