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Comment by 5ilv3r | Hacker News Reader

"Hyperlinks still work."

I observe that this is increasingly no longer true. Links no longer show you when you have visited them. Chains of 301s are common. Tracking links are now the norm. The link text almost never is where you are actually going. Pages automatically redirect you based on a ton of probed information (mobile, desktop, tablet, logged in to G+, logged into facebook, etc), and even normal browser shortcuts to interact with them are no longer working correctly with so many weird effing span and divs being recast into "links" that never work right, in css of all things.

No no. The modern hyperlink is totally busted. I blame the framework hockers and the halfass web"app" community.

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Not to mention how many of these links link into closed networks like facebook and therefore are not even public available even thought they appear and are described to be.

There any good Chrome extensions out there that'll strip all of the tracking data from URLs as you browse?

I think that they mean instead of going to "http://example.com", the link is instead to "http://t.co/asdf11", which redirects you to example.com. It's hard to strip the tracking data away from links like this because resolving the link (to get the redirect) is needed.

The only alternative that I could think of is if there was a third-party who resolved the redirects. Something akin to a Bitcoin tumbler.

But, not all links like this are trying to track individuals (like ads), rather "engagement" or marketing sources (A FB post might get one tracking link whereas a tweet might get another). These are legitimate questions that aren't necessarily nefarious. But at the same time, it does go against the spirit, if not the meaning, of "hyperlink".

I use DirectLinks by Canisbos (http://canisbos.com/directlinks). It strips the JS from Google and Facebook links and takes me directly to the page. Added bonus: you can copy a link on a Google search result and it will actually copy the link.

Sadly ironic: the link to download the extension is tracked. (http://imgur.com/EqZEdhH)

I must use 100+ links a day with 99% success rate.

If you use the web on the terms of content publishers, being flooded with ads, tracked everywhere, getting hit by malware every now and then, you will have a good success rate at "opening links".

Congratulations for that phyrric victory.

If one however desires even a little bit of control of their browsing experience, the hyperlink and the modern web are broken. It seems to be impossible to click a link and display a simple text with some images nowadays on the web, even if that's the great majority of the available content. Something will break - one will be treated either with an empty white page, missing menus, missing styles, etc.

I've been using Little Snitch (OSX) for a while now, and more recently set up a 'restricted' profile because I'm on a bad internet connection. It's shocking to notice how bloated almost all url endpoints are! It's a rare site that only produces one 'access' popup, and a large number of sites, in particular Big Media, make requests all over the place, most of them involving tracking, ads, or advertorials.

silv3r does have a point tho, increasingly pages change according to information they know about you. I'm from Brazil but I usually use browsers in english, which leads to weird experiences in some websites including google.

Nice job!

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