Rather's Link Shortener ← back to ratherlinks.com

Privacy Policy

This policy applies to the Rather's Link Shortener browser extension for Chrome and Firefox (named Jimothy's Link Shortener through v1.9.0).

Rather's Link Shortener does not collect, store, transmit, sell, or share any personal data. It makes zero network requests of any kind.

What the extension does

The extension cleans long, tracking-laden URLs in your browser's address bar so the URL you copy or share is the short canonical form. It works on a fixed list of supported sites, plus an opt-in "Universal tracking strip" mode that removes common tracking parameters (utm_*, gclid, fbclid, and similar) from URLs regardless of host. All processing happens locally in your browser.

• It does not make any network requests of any kind.
• It does not use any analytics, tracking, or telemetry SDKs.
• It does not share any data with the developer or with any third party.
• It does not read or modify page content beyond the URL itself, with one narrow exception: on a product page of the largest supported shopping site, when you have opted in to the "Include item name" preference, it reads the product title element to build the readable URL slug. That text never leaves your browser.

What the extension stores

The only data stored is your settings:

• Toggle booleans: the master switch, one toggle per supported site, and feature flags (hide travel popup, include item name, universal tracking strip).
• Two optional lists you can type into the Advanced page: domains to skip and parameter names to always keep. Both default to empty.
• Which popup groups you've expanded, so the popup opens the way you left it.

Settings live in your browser's extension sync storage. They sync between your own browser installations through your signed-in browser account (Google account on Chrome, Firefox Account on Firefox); they are never sent to the developer or any other party.

No browsing history, no URLs you've visited, no page content, no clicks, no clipboard data, no anything else is ever stored or transmitted.

Permissions

Permission	Purpose
Host access on the supported sites	Lets the content scripts run on those pages and rewrite the URL in the address bar (and, on the largest shopping site, the in-page product links).
webNavigation	Detects in-page (single-page-app) navigations on supported sites so URLs are handled when the page changes without a full reload.
storage	Remembers your toggle preferences.
scripting	Registers the optional Universal tracking strip script when you enable it, and writes the cleaned URL to your clipboard when you use the copy actions.
contextMenus	Registers the right-click "Copy clean URL" menu items.
activeTab	Lets the copy actions briefly access the current tab, just long enough to write the cleaned URL to your clipboard, without needing broad host access.
Optional: access to all sites	Requested only if you enable the "Universal tracking strip" toggle. If you never enable it, this permission is never requested. You can revoke it at any time from your browser's extension management page.

Redirector unwrapping

The copy actions can recover the real destination from tracking redirectors (email protection wrappers, search-result click-trackers, social outbound wrappers, AMP viewer links). The destination is decoded from the link text itself, locally. The extension does not follow links, does not resolve short links over the network, and does not record which links you clean.

Changes to this policy

If a future version ever changes what is collected (today: nothing), this page and the store listings will say so plainly before that version ships.

Contact

Questions or concerns: open an issue at github.com/Tommytwolegs/link-shortener.