URL Tracking Stripper & Redirect Skipper

Increase the speed & privacy of your browsing. Skip/remove tracking parameters & redirects from URLs to keep them shorter & cleaner.
What is URL Tracking Stripper & Redirect Skipper?
"URL Tracking Stripper & Redirect Skipper" is a Chrome extension that promotes quick and private browsing. It strips URL tracking parameters and skips redirects commonly employed by sites for tracking purposes. It also features a context menu for automatic link clean-up, customizable stripping methods, and full restoration of original URLs on demand.

Extension stats

By: newhouse
Users: 4,000+
Rating: 3.11 (36)
Version: 5.0.1 (Last updated: 2020-02-09)
Creation date: 2020-02-09
Risk impact: High risk impact
Risk likelihood: Low risk likelihood
Manifest version: 2
Permissions:
  • storage
  • tabs
  • contextMenus
  • webRequest
  • webRequestBlocking
  • webNavigation
  • http://*/*
  • https://*/*
Size: 75.33K

Other platforms

Not available on Firefox
Not available on Edge
Want to check extension ranking and stats more quickly for other Chrome extensions? Install Chrome-Stats extension to view Chrome-Stats data as you browse the Chrome Web Store.

Extension summary

Tracking Stripper: Some sites and email lists use links that contain url tracking tokens and tracking parameters (e.g. "utm_source=blah") in order to keep statistics on the source of traffic visiting their sites. URL Tracking Stripper will strip URL tracking parameters from URLs to keep them short and cleaner for sharing, bookmarking, instant messaging, etc.

This extension removes URL tracking parameters, URL tracking tokens, and UTM tracking tokens like Google Analytics™ (UTM) / Urchin™, Marketo™, Adobe Omniture SiteCatalyst™, MailChimp and others, with more being added as I find them or people ask me.

Redirect Skipper: Some sites (like Google Search results, links in Gmail emails, links in Facebook, or those that are part of affiliate networks) wrap the links on their pages in a quick redirect that is meant to cookie/track you before passing you on to the target URL. Often times this practice is disguised and not shown in the "hover" URL, but if you watch the network requests it sure does happen.

This extension will detect such redirects that it knows about and skip them altogether, instead going straight to the target URL. Currently supports Google Search Results redirects, with more being added as I find them or people ask me.

Context Menu / Right-Click: The extension will also install a Context Menu ("right-click") item that will be available on "link-like" elements on web pages. When chosen, this menu item will copy the element URL, skip any known redirect it may contain, then strip any tracking parameters from the target URL, and finally make that cleansed URL available in your clipboard. This is handy for automatically cleaning up any links you want to copy, but without having to click on them first.

You can choose from several different "stripping methods" to suit your speed & privacy preferences.

The extension's icon will "activate" when a URL has been altered by this extension and it will show you what the original URL was. It also allows you to load that original URL unaltered if you like, which is useful if you are experiencing issues or want the full URL to load for whatever reason.

This is literally the Extension that I would want for this purpose and that's why I wrote it! Contact me for any requests or to add more trackers to block!

User reviews

These summaries are automatically generated weekly using AI based on recent user reviews. Chrome Web Store does not verify user reviews, so some user reviews may be inaccurate, spammy, or outdated.
Pros
  • Works perfectly for some users, particularly with specific sites like Gmail and Facebook.
  • Effectively stops redirects, providing a smoother browsing experience.
  • Users appreciate its functionality when it works as intended.
Cons
  • Does not work on multiple platforms and sites, like Vivaldi and other specific URLs.
  • Right-click context menu features often don't function as expected.
  • Some users report that the 'Copy & Clean' feature does not work at all.
Most mentioned
  • Inconsistent functionality across different sites and browsers.
  • Context menu does not perform as intended.
  • Users experience issues with tracking parameters not being stripped.
Recent reviews
by Lợi Đỗ, 2024-11-11

I wanted this for my Gmail inbox, because Google always makes me solve a captcha when I click any links in there (probably because I use VPN often), and it works perfectly fine for that. I'm happy :)
by Pyr0, 2024-07-04

Works perfectly fine for me, but I only tested a couple links with Facebook tracking in them.
View all user reviews

Extension safety

Risk impact

URL Tracking Stripper & Redirect Skipper requires some sensitive permissions that could impact your browser and data security. Exercise caution before installing.

Risk likelihood

URL Tracking Stripper & Redirect Skipper has earned a fairly good reputation and likely can be trusted.

Upgrade to see risk analysis details

Promo images

URL Tracking Stripper & Redirect Skipper small promo image
Small promo image

Similar extensions

Here are some Chrome extensions that are similar to URL Tracking Stripper & Redirect Skipper: