The goal of the copy clean link feature is to remove anything that's not needed in the query string of a URL (typically attribution clutter like utm_source=facebook). This is achieved by removing the parameters present in a manually-curated list.
While the goal is different from the privacy feature which removes query string trackers automatically when Shields is enabled (link to wiki), a cleaned URL will also be debounced and have its user trackers removed and so it will be at least as clean as what you would get as a result of visiting the URL in Brave.
Implemented on desktop via right-click menu on the URL bar, Share, right-click on link. It is also enabled by default for Ctrl+C except on macOS due to focus problems on that platform. Support for the keyboard shortcut can be toggled via brave://flags/#brave-copy-clean-link-by-default.
On macOS, it's also in the application menu.
On iOS, it is available via a long-press on links and the share option. The same is true on Android.
Engineering issues: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues?q=is%3Aissue+label%3Acopy-clean-link+
List issues: https://github.com/brave/adblock-lists/issues?q=is%3Aissue+label%3A%22Clean+URLS%22
Anybody can suggest new additions to the list by submitting a PR.
- Include an example URL in the PR and/or commit message.
- The original and cleaned URLs must lead to the same page.
- Cannot break the page.
- Cannot change the page functionality (e.g. causing the page to be potentially shown in a different language by removing a language parameter).
- Only HTTP/HTTPS URLs can be targeted.
- Avoid the global scope (
*://*/*) for parameters that are too generic (i.e. likely to be used for different purposes on different sites). - Avoid changing the last element of JSON arrays to make
git blameeasier. Add to the beginning instead. - Keep the test entries last in the file.
- Look for the parameters in the Adguard list to see whether any of them are commented-out in that list due to breakage.