YouTube adds tracking parameters to shared URLs that can be traced back to individual Google accounts
YouTube adds tracking parameters to shared URLs that can be traced back to individual Google accounts
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Do people use the share button rather than just copy the URL from the address bar? Am I just really old?
Am I just really old?
Sounds like you have cleaned a few trackballs in your days
Now I just try to keep my regular balls clean.
Pics or didn't happen.
LemonpartyDOTcom
Leave that shit on Reddit
Keep up the good fight, buddy
Good. You don't want these tracked.
Many people use a phone and many people have youtube app on it.
If you use youtube on a mobile app rather than a browser, it doesn't have an address bar
Never use an app for what should be a web page.
That would be all apps then. Apps are legitimately great. Websites do the same scummy things.
Apps are legitimately great.
Except they are mostly just lobotomized websites where you can't copy the text or save media to your local device.
But it's blockable on websites. Firefox with ublock makes YouTube, Facebook, and instragam a relatively pleasant experience again.
There is other apps like newpipe or grayjay, i havent experienced any ads using them
And I know folks that have never lost money on crypto. Doesn't make crypto less of a risk.
websites are sandboxed while apps have almost full access. So, no, they don't.
What does that mean? I don't understand. Apps have full access to what that websites don't?
Exactly. A website has to download ALL the HTML every time. Sure, it can put all that in a JavaScript file and cache it but it has to be built each time. With an app, you (the devs) get to choose what to load, and it’s just usually a few simple things each time instead of constantly running a script.
Using Lemmy as a web app really sucked. Having an actual app with actual integration to a robust UI works.
Plus as an app developer you get to go through the user's contacts and files. Having an actual app locks you and allows you to be the product the app owners sell. Nothing else and certainly nothing of value for 99% of the apps out there.
Apple does not allow this out of the box. You have to confirm for every permission. There is not automatic access to files.
And yet you said yes when asked.
Huh? I don’t give apps like YouTube access to my files. I don’t upload so they don’t need it. I don’t even think it has asked because I’m not clicking the upload button. YouTube doesn’t get access to my location either. It does have access to local connections because of YouTube on my TV, but that’s it.
So, you are claiming that youtube plays without the rights to save anything? If you say so.
An added benefit of the share button is that it generates a minified link – "https://youtu.be/abcde" instead of "https://youtube.com/watch?v=abcde". I find it neater.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/watch?v=abcde
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
First link is 404, second link is not 404
That's the problem, though. The long link is the same for everyone. The shortened is unique to an account.
I always assume shortened links are viruses, at least that's what got ingrained in me from the yearly security IT lectures
That is 100% wrong. Did you read the tweets or even look at a single YouTube URL?
youtube.com/watch?v=FOO&si=BAR would be shortened to just youtu.be/FOO?si=BAR
The link to other people’s account is in the &si=BAR part. Probably standing for “share ID” or “source ID”or something. The shortened link is just the same as the long one with watch?v=FOO being included in the URL instead of the parameters.
I've seen it happen personally when sharing shortened YouTube links in the past.
Maybe they just changed how it worked, or I was on the other side of an A/B test.
I don't have a choice when using the app, though I have been removing the tracker from the URL.
On the Android app, the share button is the only way. I use ReVanced, hope the devs add a patch for removing the si query param automatically.
Share is easier to do it at a specific time in the video.
Like, you can manually add the "t=x" at the end for seconds, but it's just easier to click the box to make the share button add it.
Right click on the video, there is an option to copy the video url at the time you want. As far as i can see it does not contain the account info.
Or you could just tell the person what to FF to.