Are you tired of having to clean up links whenever you share something on Whatsapp or Facebook? The thumbnail usually comes up just fine, but the referral gunk at the end of a URL can take up so much unnecessary space.
Well, Chrome’s taken a shot at trying to solve that problem for you. With the v64 update of the Google Chrome app, the browser automatically trims off all the unnecessary information at the end of a URL before you share it. At the end of it, you’re left with a nice clean link without any clutter.
Sharing Amazon links when shopping will be less of a hassle and so much cleaner without affiliate odds and ends dragging at the end of a URL. No fluff, no huff.
So, how do you do this?
Just use the Share option in the Chrome menu. Copy the link to your clipboard or share it on another app, it will already be streamlined for use. You don’t have to apply an extension or set a secondary plug-in. It's that simple.
Some of you may want to keep the whole URL. It’s necessary for certain tasks and losing the option altogether may prove to be cumbersome. Hence, if you select the URL manually from the search bar or share directly from a page, you’ll still have the full URL details at your disposal.
While this feature does make Chrome more user friendly, for some it has a few, very minor, drawbacks. One of which is the elimination of anchor tags. That is to say, that whenever you visit a page that’s been shared, the user will always be routed to the top of the page. So you can’t point to a specific part of a longer article that might be what is relevant to you.
The v64 comes with a bunch of other updates, especially ones for blocking unwanted ads but cleaner URLs is something that was long overdue with affiliate links getting longer with time.