Review by cheatfreak47
Rated 3 out of 5
by cheatfreak47, a year agoClearURLs is an extension I've used for about a year, but I've recently disabled for the time being.
On the surface, ClearURLs is an excellent extension and it provides all the things it claims to, and it works, exactly as described.
The problem really comes from when it doesn't work- and how annoying it is to deal with in those situations.
ClearURLs lacks what I would call an extremely essential feature for an extension like this. A Whitelist. When ClearURLs breaks something, your only option(s) are to report it to the developer, and disable it until you are past whatever thing it broke, and then turn it back on.
This is tremendously annoying. To make matters worse, from what I can tell- the development of this extension has been relatively stale in the last few years. I'm sure the developer has plenty of good reasons why they haven't been working on it too much, but that doesn't change the reality of the situation.
Whitelisting has been an issue on their issue tracker for over 4 years. There's been an open merge request that added the feature for at least a year which hasn't been merged, and in that time, there's only been a handful of commits, usually just what I consider "maintenance mode" sorts of pushes. Stuff like "oh firefox changed a thing, I'll just remove this little bit here then" stuff.
On top of that, it's clear that the issue tracker is full of reports, many of which are clear duplicates and it really isn't being maintained all that well. Obviously developing extensions takes time and effort, like any software so I won't really hold that against them, but still- it seems a little scatterbrained to me.
Regardless, ClearURLs is fine for what it is, I just think a few small feature upgrades would take it from being just pretty good sometimes to truly being excellent, and arguably an essential online privacy extension. It just currently annoys me too much to use it regularly.
On the surface, ClearURLs is an excellent extension and it provides all the things it claims to, and it works, exactly as described.
The problem really comes from when it doesn't work- and how annoying it is to deal with in those situations.
ClearURLs lacks what I would call an extremely essential feature for an extension like this. A Whitelist. When ClearURLs breaks something, your only option(s) are to report it to the developer, and disable it until you are past whatever thing it broke, and then turn it back on.
This is tremendously annoying. To make matters worse, from what I can tell- the development of this extension has been relatively stale in the last few years. I'm sure the developer has plenty of good reasons why they haven't been working on it too much, but that doesn't change the reality of the situation.
Whitelisting has been an issue on their issue tracker for over 4 years. There's been an open merge request that added the feature for at least a year which hasn't been merged, and in that time, there's only been a handful of commits, usually just what I consider "maintenance mode" sorts of pushes. Stuff like "oh firefox changed a thing, I'll just remove this little bit here then" stuff.
On top of that, it's clear that the issue tracker is full of reports, many of which are clear duplicates and it really isn't being maintained all that well. Obviously developing extensions takes time and effort, like any software so I won't really hold that against them, but still- it seems a little scatterbrained to me.
Regardless, ClearURLs is fine for what it is, I just think a few small feature upgrades would take it from being just pretty good sometimes to truly being excellent, and arguably an essential online privacy extension. It just currently annoys me too much to use it regularly.
972 reviews
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18924473, 6 days ago
- Rated 4 out of 5by Emme, 7 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by sixty, 7 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Sorries_In_A_Sack, 9 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Giulio, 11 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Doug S, 13 days ago⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ClearURLs – Clean Up Tracking Junk from Your Links
ClearURLs is a must-have Firefox extension for anyone who values privacy and a cleaner browsing experience. It automatically strips tracking parameters from URLs, preventing companies from following you across the web. This makes your links shorter, neater, and more private.
Pros:
✅ Automatic URL cleaning: Removes tracking parameters in real time, keeping your links tidy and private.
✅ Boosts privacy: Prevents companies from tracking your clicks and browsing behavior.
✅ Lightweight and efficient: Doesn’t slow down Firefox or consume unnecessary resources.
✅ Open-source and transparent: Developed with privacy in mind, free from shady practices.
✅ Customizable rules: Allows you to add custom rules for specific sites.
Cons:
❌ May break some referral links: Occasionally, it can prevent certain affiliate or referral links from working properly, but you can easily whitelist trusted sites.
❌ Minimal user interface: While functional, the UI is pretty barebones—though that’s part of its simplicity.
💡 Overall, ClearURLs is a fantastic Firefox extension for anyone serious about privacy and reducing online tracking. It works silently in the background, keeping your links clean and your data safer. Highly recommended! - Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18903740, 18 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by 敬念法轮大法好远离瘟疫, 19 days ago
- Rated 2 out of 5by mohammad, a month ago
- Rated 4 out of 5by Firefox user 16962317, a month ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by anyo, a month ago
- Rated 4 out of 5by jcfyre, a month agoVERY good extension. But as of recently when I try to access the logs in ClearURLs it gives me this message: “The page at ClearURLs says:
DataTables warning: table id=logTable - i18n file loading error. For more information about this error, please see datatables net/tn/21” I left https out of net/tn/21 since mozilla doesnt allow URLs in reviews. I am not sure what to do. Also, on both the desktop and mobile versions of this extension, changing the color for the theme in ClearURL settings never actually changes it, but rather just keeps resetting back to orange no matter the selection. - Rated 5 out of 5by ramiel, a month ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Drafer, a month ago
- Rated 4 out of 5by Firefox user 13212439, a month ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Johnny105, a month ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 16105683, 2 months agoThis add-on stopped working for me, so I uninstalled it and reinstalled it and now it works.
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18849812, 2 months agoUsed to break functionalities in Google Sheets and other Google Drive products, but the developer heard us and fixed it with the latest release (1.27.3)!
- Rated 3 out of 5by ie, 2 months agoIt's great until it's not. In my case a [var]=/[value] becomes [var]=%2F[value] and broke the website. Please consider, for the least, adding a whitelist function.
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 14104801, 2 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by GothGlamPrincess, 2 months ago