According to Brave it can remove parameters such as utm_source but in practice it’ not doing so at the moment.
For example, open this link in Brave: https://www.fotmob.com/topnews/12198-glasner-revolution-is-full-swing-at-selhurst-park?utm_source=fotmob
You’ll see that the utm_source part hasn’t been removed.
Here’s a link from Facebook that has, utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign but none of these are deleted. https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thesun.co.uk%2Fsport%2F27962965%2Fman-utd-old-trafford-ai-prediction%2F%3Futm_medium%3DSocial%26utm_campaign%3Dsunfootballfacebook170524%26utm_source%3DFacebook%26fbclid%3DIwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2S-BWLqLV3DesvXc1GU-r6e0INghrocrgjDlDaSl_Yx0n3H4_hmkqtCzA_aem_AQ2Z6SxjHGJVZfZaM_LIY36SGdCrgnB-fHqQ5lj5Gqy6rt2DQ0-dcMJxUIvz1BBT1QxhCOM0yZOWuEhRRNiRQ_Xk%23Echobox%3D1715893450&h=AT3nWhJKk0qumj8yYKPxAO8ATTG01dAnAJxO0AB3KkMZ_Q024NXYYN9gEnKIjnmJKM4aU4MZIVUTf32EMGjZaotcK4lrr-ok06TP51-JbV20_3w5lh8m5H7vYRdvPv4QvuvK&__tn__=%2CmH-R&c[0]=AT1IOs_ArR5pdi9xMd2hbBydXsJy9cA0iP9R9EGJl5XQvEDdN6rjNHgQIUdbc920FL_0YF4V80ebjJUpxyqSaqRDqNBC-BNedTwGoVlvgVJlQwl0ORs817NuFaV-w3qBMtuF7xu3ewNl-XHGh8w7SK1reRu4gnyBvSlG_cgu3GqDt15rzCpabNQvBLx3XcpBLtezt7r3QJtdeIEdqICDvUqFnRQjXnYTJ6-Qpaz52g
Interestingly if I manually add AdGuard URL Tracking filter filter in Brave Shield then all these are deleted. So Brave Shield clearly supports it but for some reason it’s not working internally.
Same on both Brave on Windows and Android.
Settings:
Brave Shield on Aggressive + Fanboy’s Annoyance
Note:
If I right click the link the links of the address bar and select copy clean link then the links are cleaned as it should. Just not working in Shield.
Another thing:
If I add AdGuard URL Tracking filter in Brave Shield, then it breaks this page. The page is not loaded. What’s the reason?: https://www.fotmob.com/embed/news/01hxc3d93jmn/httpswww90mincombest-premier-league-players-all-timeapputmsourcefotmobutmmediumpnpartner342902show-titletrueshow-reads-countertrueshow-datetrueshow-authortrue
Hey @SeriousHoax. When it comes to a lot of the adblock/Shields stuff, I know very little beyond the basics. So there’s not too much I’ll be able to answer you on. I also want to remind you that it was 3:18AM on a Saturday when you tagged everyone in your last reply. While Fanboynz is a bit more random on when he appears, Mattches and the rest of Support generally are never active on weekends or American holidays. Just mentioning that as might be waiting at least a few days for a follow-up.
As far as I know, AdGuard rules aren’t supported. I say that as I have seen it said many times, such as below:
Is this just you clicking or are you using Copy Clean Link? If you copy clean link, then it should be removing. But will say you have to keep in mind the screenshot below, which is from https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/28997
And from me going through places like Github, I see they are working on increasing support. For example, the links below. They were created in 2023 but I do see they added a new label to them 2 days ago, meaning it’s not been lost or forgotten. Just would have been not high priority compared to some other things they’ve been working on :
I’m going to just tag in a lot of the people who work on Shields to see if any of them can answer for you better on what’s going on and any tweaks you might be able to make for what you’re aiming for.
Thanks for your broad reply and providing some resources for me to check.
But the thing is I’m aware of Brave’s current shortcomings on not supporting all parameters. My issue is regarding the ones that are supported, Brave is currently not removing those on either of my Windows and Android devices. Maybe this is a bug. If yes, then it should be fixed. As I said, copy clean link function works but Brave by itself is not cleaning links which it should.
Here’s are the ones supported by Brave but it’s not working at the moment:
@SeriousHoax I appreciate that. What I was sharing is that through the reading, even on the link you provided, is not everything is blocked or capable to be blocked.
The weekend is now over, so Support should be getting back in and trying to catch up on stuff. know you already tagged @Mattches and then I tagged three core people from the Shields/privacy team. Hopefully they’ll be able to provide better clarification on things.
As to what I mean about saying how I perceived things, looking at https://brave.com/glossary/utm/ we see that it mentions:
Often, the information UTM parameters hold isn’t specific enough to identify an individual user—the level of detail is along the lines of “user clicked a link in our summer sale email campaign” or “user clicked the link in our X (formerly Twitter) bio.” These UTM parameters can give website owners useful information about their visitors without violating privacy, and are relatively harmless.
and
There are other parameters that are invariably associated with invasive tracking, such as “gclid” (Google click identifier). Brave includes a feature called “query stripping” that automatically removes such parameters.
and
Common examples of these include the “Facebook Click Identifier” (fbclid), used by Facebook to record which sites you visit when you’re not on Facebook, the “Google Click Identifier” (gclid), used by Google to link the advertising and analytics data they have on you, and Microsoft’s equivalent (msclkid).
I guess I basically was seeing it that they aren’t intended to block all. It made it sound like they just had some rules to stop things they see as intrusive, such as gclid and fbclid. And going back to the Github I linked earlier, I see I didn’t read properly as they were talking about adding exceptions to existing rules, where I somehow originally saw it as they didn’t even have the existing rules for removeparam for some things like these UTM parameters.
@Saoiray You are right. I throughly read the glossary page of UTM and indeed there are some parameters which are not used for tracking purposes.
But in the case of my example, they are indeed tracking parameters which are not being deleted by Brave at the moment but they should be since Brave supports it.
Take a look at this link:
This link is collected from Facebook. As you can see there are more than one utm parameters that are clearly put there for tracking purposes. utm_medium=Social, utm_campaign=sunfootballfacebook, utm_source=Facebook all these are tracking related.
So, it’s probably a bug on Brave.
Should I create this issue on Brave-Browser GitHub or wait for the expert you tagged to reply here?
I’d wait for now, though I suppose Github wouldn’t hurt as long as you get in the right spot and provide all relevant info.
As mentioned before, support isn’t generally active on the weekends or American holidays. They are in various time zones as well, though essentially can consider Pacific time. Then as they return on Monday it’s usually digging through support tickets, checking new topics, and responding to where they were tagged.
I’m hoping they’ll get back to us shortly but it wouldn’t be unreasonable to say it might take a day or two. I’ll primarily be relying on @Mattches to guide in the right people and give answers. The others are more behind the scenes doing work, with Fanboynz as someone really random on what and when he decides to reply to anything. But at least have tagged so it’s on their radar when/if they have time to check in.
There are two separate features in Brave which remove URL parameters:
The privacy-focused query string filter which removes parameters which are tracking individual users or clicks.
The convenient copy clean link feature which aims to remove all unnecessary parameters from URLs shared (i.e. copied to the clipboard). This is not limited to parameters which enable the creation of behavioral profiles for users.
The second feature (copy clean link) implicitly includes all of the parameters in the first list, and so it is much more comprehensive.
The utm_source parameter in your example is one which is not tracking individuals, but rather the source of a click (e.g. a specific mobile app). Therefore we only remove it as part of the second feature.
Of course, if you want to clean URLs of all unnecessary elements all of the time, then we also have built-in support for third-party lists like the AdGuard one, as you pointed out.
I appreciate the explanation, thanks. It would be nice if Brave supported the AdGuard URL tracking or equivalent rules by default in the future. I see that there are issues opened on GitHub that are being looked at which is good to see. Keep up the good work
We are indeed continuing to maintain both lists. If you find any parameters that we don’t currently address in either list, feel free to open an issue and we’ll take a look.
@fmarier Hello again! Can you please check the last part of my main post?
Let me explain that again.
On Brave Shield, add AdGuard URL Tracking filter, then visit this site: https://www.fotmob.com/
Click one of the 90min articles on the right side and you’ll get this error
