Link Auto Cleaner Autor: nhellyer6

Tracking parameters follow links everywhere.

A YouTube share link can include an identifier tied to the person who shared it. Shopping links can stretch to hundreds of characters and reveal where they came from. Newsletter links carry campaign tags. Ad clicks pick up advertising IDs.

Link Auto Cleaner removes that tracking on your device, before the link leaves your clipboard.

NO DATA COLLECTION. NO NETWORK REQUESTS.

Link Auto Cleaner has no servers and does not make network requests during normal operation.

It collects nothing, sends nothing, and includes:
• No analytics
• No telemetry
• No accounts
• No ads
• No remote rule downloads

The entire cleaning rule set ships inside the extension.

Settings are stored using storage.local, not storage.sync. That choice is deliberate: syncing your paused-site list could upload a list of sites you use to Google’s servers. Link Auto Cleaner keeps that information on your device instead.

There is one optional feature that can make a network request: short-link resolution. It is disabled by default and does nothing unless you explicitly turn it on.

CLEAN LINKS WHEN YOU COPY THEM — NOT JUST WHEN YOU BROWSE

Many link-cleaning extensions only clean the address bar. That still leaves tracking parameters attached when you copy a link into a message.

Others rely on a special right-click command that you have to remember to use.

Link Auto Cleaner works at the clipboard level:

• Copy any link — it is cleaned before it reaches your clipboard
• Paste a link — it is cleaned on the way in, even if you copied it somewhere else
• Use Chrome’s “Copy link address” — the copied URL is cleaned automatically
• Press Alt+Shift+C — copy the current page URL in cleaned form
• Browse normally — supported tracking parameters can also be removed as pages load
• Paste a URL into the popup — inspect exactly what would be removed and what would stay

WHAT IT REMOVES
Link Auto Cleaner includes 346 removal rules across 23 sites, plus a global rule set that applies everywhere.

It removes tracking such as:
• Marketing and analytics campaign parameters
• Advertising click identifiers
• Per-share identifiers that can associate a link with the person who shared it
• Newsletter open- and click-tracking tokens
• Affiliate and referral parameters added by shopping sites

For some sites, simply deleting individual parameters is not enough. Link Auto Cleaner can rebuild unnecessarily complicated URLs into their clean canonical form.

A 300-character product URL can become a short link to the exact same product. A video share URL can become the plain video address while preserving useful information such as timestamps and playlists.

It can also unwrap redirect URLs used by social networks, search engines, newsletters, and other services. When the real destination is encoded inside the URL, Link Auto Cleaner extracts it locally instead of following the tracking redirect.

WHAT IT DELIBERATELY LEAVES ALONE

Link Auto Cleaner protects parameters that are required for a page to work correctly, including things such as:
• Video timestamps
• Playlist information
• Image-gallery position
• Access tokens used by special share links
• Search queries

These behaviors are covered by automated tests.

The extension is also conservative around complex web apps. Pages that manage their own clipboard behavior, such as code editors and Google Docs, are not modified. Rich-text editors are left alone unless the clipboard content is simply a URL.

IF A SITE DOESN’T WORK CORRECTLY

Click the toolbar icon and choose “Pause on this site.”

That disables cleaning only for the current site. You do not have to turn off the entire extension because one website behaves differently.

SEE EXACTLY WHAT WAS REMOVED

The popup breaks the current URL into its individual parameters and shows which ones were:
• Removed
• Kept
• Protected

Each recognized parameter is labeled so you can see what it was used for.

You can also paste any other URL into the popup and inspect it the same way.

The settings page lets you:
• Search every built-in cleaning rule
• Add your own custom rules
• Protect parameters that should never be removed
• Pause cleaning on specific sites
• Control optional features such as short-link resolution

Cleaner links, less tracking, and no browsing data sent anywhere.