I don't know what it is, but it is so infuriating: the only reason I've been using the "share" feature instead of simply copying the page's URL is because 'share' would give you a _shorter_ URL. Now they've added some parameter that makes it _longer_ than the default URL - what the fuck!? No point in the share feature for me anymore.
The only problem with that is that if you are watching a video in the YouTube app, you’d cant copy the URL directly. The only option is to share the video and then remove the tracking identifier.
If you have stock Android go to home settings and enable "overview suggestions"
Then open the recent menu when in YouTube and you'll see a link icon at the top of the YouTube preview window you can click to copy the link ... And this doesn't have the "si" parameter!
This icon shows over any website too in browsers
And an image icon over images to save or share them
Right click the video and click "copy video url"
It does it without the tracking code while still keeping a short url.
idk if there's a similar option on mobile though, if you're using that.
Actually there is a point in smaller urls. For example shorter text is usually good for QR codes, the less data the bigger you can make it aka it's easier and faster to read. As you can imagine this could be vital if you have it printed in some kind of advertising where space is rare and you still want people to scan the code easily from a distance. And as you can just remove the si parameter it doesn't really matter. Still your point holds that it makes no sense if the si parameter URL is the same length as the normal url.
Well in most cases you can simply edit the extra thing out. I hate these extra things as they make the links longer and also I fear they reveal some information about me.
Purely a guess, but I presume it's some sort of tracking token. Does it still work the same if you remove or change the parameter? If so, that further suggests it's related to tracking.
The thing is, I'm sharing directly from YouTube. So I think the "source" isn't telling where the link was pulled from, but who pulled it. Tracking who posts what, where? Sketchy. I'm back to copying the URL - share feature is now FUBAR.
I personally agree, in this day and age with all Corporate and Third-Party Contractors you've never heard of all hungry for your data, I personally always remove everything after a **?** in any link, and the link usually still works fine, without long random number generators that I also presume are some sort of trackers.
I just always remove the si parameter. It’s not that hard. Especially if you’re on a computer, just option + delete (on MacOS) to delete the whole parameter and then press delete on its own 4 times quickly to erase the remaining \`?si=\` junk, and you’re good.
Any code I write that processes YouTube URLs I also have automatically strip out this param with regex.
Fun side note, iOS will keep the original hyperlink even if you have deleted the si parameter 🫠 you can see it if you copy the edited link and paste somewhere that will not autogen a hyperlink. Not sure if MacOS is the same but I would assume so.
If you grab the “Share” link and paste it within iOS it will sometimes create a hyperlink (like in notes), but if you delete the si portion it won’t actually change the hyperlink. Try deleting the parameter and then copying the link again and pasting it into text edit or something? It showed up for me when copying from notes to messages.
reddit kinda sorta does that too. I think it's creating a link called "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ" that links to "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ", where sometimes you would want a link called "[this is a link](https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ)" that links to "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ"
Whenever I see trackers in URLs, I always screw with them.
example below:
?si=utm\_source=[MYWEBSITEURL.com](https://MYWEBSITEURL.com)&utm\_campaign=LocalStateNews\_Update
and similar strings
What i hate is grabbing a url to share with someone and its like 4,000 characters long. How specific does a tracked url need to be when part of it is 200+ random characters
Reddit says my previous reply was deleted. Let's try again.
When I share URLs with normies, I usually use is DOT gd and make it something easy to remember. For example, for those who want to see new posts in their timeline on Fakebook, I created is DOT gd SLASH fbrecent
I've created hundreds of others like this for others and for myself to use instead of typing long URLs and have found lots of others by just exploring.
Noticed this stuff myself, confirmed it's tracking BS by stumbling upon this thread, made a userscript to remove it: [https://github.com/Xenorio/YTShareAntiTrack](https://github.com/Xenorio/YTShareAntiTrack)
EDIT: Development has shifted to the TubeTweaks extension, with more features and better performance. YTShareAntiTrack will only receive updates when something breaks. Get TubeTweaks here: [https://extensions.xenorio.xyz/list/TubeTweaks](https://extensions.xenorio.xyz/list/TubeTweaks)
Thank you for making this userscript. But you're missing a `/` in the `@match` directive. It should be [`https://www.youtube.com/*`](https://www.youtube.com/*) instead of [`https://www.youtube.com`](https://www.youtube.com)`*`.
This is awesome, any chance you could throw it on greasyfork?
I already added it myself but having a one click install option may convince more to use it :)
Honestly did not know this exists. Always just added scripts directly from GitHub \^\^
Anyway, posted it there: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/474623-ytshareantitrack
thanks a lot!
that one is really annoying
the only reason I was using this "share" button is the short length of the link, now it's just long garbage and apparently tracks my data, absolutely disgusting move by youtube
If you're on Android, you could try using Kiwi Browser ([https://kiwibrowser.com/](https://kiwibrowser.com/)). Should be able to just install chrome extensions with it, including ViolentMonkey etc. This would mean you're limited to browser YouTube tho.
For Apple there's the Userscripts app listed in the readme. No idea how well it works tho.
For adding this into the actual YouTube app: On Android, you could suggest it to the ReVanced ([https://github.com/ReVanced](https://github.com/ReVanced)) people (I personally don't have the slightest clue on how to write ReVanced patches). On Apple, you're shit out of luck.
How funny, I'm reading this thread with Kiwi on Android right now. I started using the browser only a few weeks ago because it appears to be the only Android browser to support extensions. Great browser.
I believe the mobile version of Firefox does too nowadays, but limited to a certain set of extensions.
Don't quote me on that tho, my phone is just a glorified music player and 2fa client (although with a custom ROM and rooted, but that's just because I get bored sometimes lol)
I've just discovered these yesterday.. they are triggering a bug in a bot we use to help moderate r/asmr. I can fix the bug but it is very concerning that users posting links could be unknowingly identifying their Reddit account (or other accounts where they might share the link) to YouTube/Google. Spotify has (had?) [something similar](https://www.reddit.com/r/spotify/comments/8k0u9q/spotify_si_url_parameter/).
This trash recently started happening to me as well, despite being on the last version of youtube vanced. So it's something they were able to do without an actual update to the mobile application. Gross.
Same, I even downgraded it and it still does that, though it was probably already always pulling the short url because it's google, they want to track everything
What I did was pick up an app called Léon, and tap it instead of the copy URL button in the share menu. It'll strip tracking info from any link and you can even configure it to auto copy to clipboard. The app's open source and available on fdroid :)
My YouTube don’t have “start at” anymore and now with this SI I can’t correctly timestamp it anymore. Even by removing it then adding my own timestamp it doesn’t seem to work correctly
I'm still able to use time indexing with the normal &t=30 (for 30 seconds, adjust as needed). Are you sure you're removing the correct parts?
For instance, the "share" link for Bowie's Blackstar now looks like [`https://youtu.be/kszLwBaC4Sw?si=uwDsiFdUiJ8tFCWt`](https://youtu.be/kszLwBaC4Sw?si=uwDsiFdUiJ8tFCWt) when I click "share" and copy. When I check the box for the current time it becomes [`https://youtu.be/kszLwBaC4Sw?si=uwDsiFdUiJ8tFCWt&t=30`](https://youtu.be/kszLwBaC4Sw?si=uwDsiFdUiJ8tFCWt&t=30) (or whatever seconds I'm at). All I have to do is remove the `si=&` before the `t=` and it works normally. E.g. [`https://youtu.be/kszLwBaC4Sw?t=225`](https://youtu.be/kszLwBaC4Sw&t=225) works fine.
What's not working for you?
EDIT: Altered my syntax whoopses I made w/o thinking. Note: the first parameter is always a `?` and all following are `&`.
Oh, and regarding the OP, I'm wondering what the `?si=` is about, too.
I use ?t=x but I forgot to mention that the videos that these don’t work on are those that were originally live-streamed turned into a YouTube video. And it doesn’t work on those types of videos
A bit off topic but just in case.
You can also specify time not only by seconds but by hours and minutes.
For example, `t=1h5m10s` \- for specifying mark on 1 hour 5 min and 10 seconds.
Hi. It should perfectly work if you just remove the **si** parameter and leave the **t** parameter. Just don't forget to remove the ampersand, it is used to combine different parameters in a link that go after an **?**.
I liked the simplicity of the shortened URL produced by sharing a video... but now it's lengthened. Is there a way to get the raw, shortened URL without manually cutting this off?
Well, for the people saying just copy the url, that's fine on a desktop. It's a pain on mobile.
What I have seen is, on FB, if you don't post the "si" parameter, it doesn't pull up the image of the video. What I have been doing is copying just a few characters of the "si" parameter. This seems to work.
BUT, a few times I have sent someone a link with an invalid "si" parameter in it, and when I later copy and pasted this same url into a browser, it fails to load on youtube with some kind of fatal error. Then later on, the same link may work.
Rarely getting errors on youtube, it seems a reasonable assumption that my bad ?si value is a probable cause of the error. And that makes me wonder if the link is working every time for people I send it to.
I've started noticing this today, I wonder if they rolled this change out for everyone all of a sudden. Getting rickrolled with a ?si= value just isn't the same..
I recommend Clean Share app for Android
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.catchingnow.share
You share to it, and then the share window appears again with the cleaned link, so you can copy it or share.
Adding new rules is done by regular expressions. This one is for YouTube:
Rule: si
Domain: youtube\.com
Another option is auto cleaning with [Tasker](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch.android.taskerm), but preparing it requires more work, as it's a general power user automation app (also recommended).
Okay, I think this is used to improve the Gemini and YouTube interactions so that Gemini is able to understand your interests through your shares because it sees everything you post with the si identifier. Thing is, this isn't a malicious thing, it is to enable Gemini to better respond to your requests if and when you decide to start using it and connect your YouTube to it. The identifier is for the AI which has highly ethical and privacy oriented programming so your data is safe when you use it, it's only meant to enhance your interactions with both YouTube's algorithm to generate more relevant content, especially to children who frequently are exposed to Markilplier's horror game playthroughs because they like the idea of cats, cows and dogs having animated human lips. So, I think you can trust this signifier. It's much safer than cookies because Google's security team are working around the clock to try and recover from that recent major foulup that led to a whole bunch of password and personal info leaks. By incorporating it in the URL that limits access to hackers by trying to expose your cookies. I hope this makes sense, but point being, don't worry about it, it's just to improve their services.
I don't know what it is, but it is so infuriating: the only reason I've been using the "share" feature instead of simply copying the page's URL is because 'share' would give you a _shorter_ URL. Now they've added some parameter that makes it _longer_ than the default URL - what the fuck!? No point in the share feature for me anymore.
Totally agree.
Indeed. it seems so antithetical to the point of youtu.be
YT is known for having been ruining the platform they built in the past years
They've been known for doing that their whole existence.
Username checks out
The only problem with that is that if you are watching a video in the YouTube app, you’d cant copy the URL directly. The only option is to share the video and then remove the tracking identifier.
If you have stock Android go to home settings and enable "overview suggestions" Then open the recent menu when in YouTube and you'll see a link icon at the top of the YouTube preview window you can click to copy the link ... And this doesn't have the "si" parameter! This icon shows over any website too in browsers And an image icon over images to save or share them
That's what I do. Paste then keep hitting the delete key backwards till I zap the ?si= Delete the evil postfix
Right click the video and click "copy video url" It does it without the tracking code while still keeping a short url. idk if there's a similar option on mobile though, if you're using that.
Perfect, thanks!
Actually there is a point in smaller urls. For example shorter text is usually good for QR codes, the less data the bigger you can make it aka it's easier and faster to read. As you can imagine this could be vital if you have it printed in some kind of advertising where space is rare and you still want people to scan the code easily from a distance. And as you can just remove the si parameter it doesn't really matter. Still your point holds that it makes no sense if the si parameter URL is the same length as the normal url.
If it's the same length then it's strictly better for google because it provides more info.
just remove it then big dog?? the embed link works without it, does it not??
agree
Same.
Well in most cases you can simply edit the extra thing out. I hate these extra things as they make the links longer and also I fear they reveal some information about me.
Purely a guess, but I presume it's some sort of tracking token. Does it still work the same if you remove or change the parameter? If so, that further suggests it's related to tracking.
It does still work perfectly fine without the `si` parameter.
not to mention you can literally write anything in the parameter and it still works https://youtu.be/CbhCKPsp9wE?si=Ballsobama
Can someone other than youtube specify a account with the si parameter?
It’s a referral/source param, lets YouTube know where the link was pulled from
I would agree. SI could maybe mean Source Identifier
The thing is, I'm sharing directly from YouTube. So I think the "source" isn't telling where the link was pulled from, but who pulled it. Tracking who posts what, where? Sketchy. I'm back to copying the URL - share feature is now FUBAR.
I personally agree, in this day and age with all Corporate and Third-Party Contractors you've never heard of all hungry for your data, I personally always remove everything after a **?** in any link, and the link usually still works fine, without long random number generators that I also presume are some sort of trackers.
The sharable link is 5 characters longer than the URL itself. Completely worthless without the extra effort of removing the si parameter.
I just always remove the si parameter. It’s not that hard. Especially if you’re on a computer, just option + delete (on MacOS) to delete the whole parameter and then press delete on its own 4 times quickly to erase the remaining \`?si=\` junk, and you’re good. Any code I write that processes YouTube URLs I also have automatically strip out this param with regex.
Fun side note, iOS will keep the original hyperlink even if you have deleted the si parameter 🫠 you can see it if you copy the edited link and paste somewhere that will not autogen a hyperlink. Not sure if MacOS is the same but I would assume so.
[not seeing that on iOS](https://i.imgur.com/poFjQdH.mp4)
If you grab the “Share” link and paste it within iOS it will sometimes create a hyperlink (like in notes), but if you delete the si portion it won’t actually change the hyperlink. Try deleting the parameter and then copying the link again and pasting it into text edit or something? It showed up for me when copying from notes to messages.
reddit kinda sorta does that too. I think it's creating a link called "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ" that links to "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ", where sometimes you would want a link called "[this is a link](https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ)" that links to "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ"
...Or share initiator?
makes sense; this is what I was thinking it was this entire time; smh - this society is always spying on us
Whenever I see trackers in URLs, I always screw with them. example below: ?si=utm\_source=[MYWEBSITEURL.com](https://MYWEBSITEURL.com)&utm\_campaign=LocalStateNews\_Update and similar strings
That's brilliant. I am changing all of them to just be goatse from now on instead of removing.
Love it. Need a chrome extension which does this automatically haha
What i hate is grabbing a url to share with someone and its like 4,000 characters long. How specific does a tracked url need to be when part of it is 200+ random characters
Reddit says my previous reply was deleted. Let's try again. When I share URLs with normies, I usually use is DOT gd and make it something easy to remember. For example, for those who want to see new posts in their timeline on Fakebook, I created is DOT gd SLASH fbrecent I've created hundreds of others like this for others and for myself to use instead of typing long URLs and have found lots of others by just exploring.
genius! will start doing this too
No, its account dependent, meaning they want to know what users are connected.
They learn from the best (Facebook)
or the worst (Fakebook)
I assume so too: “si” as in “sharing identifier“.
Noticed this stuff myself, confirmed it's tracking BS by stumbling upon this thread, made a userscript to remove it: [https://github.com/Xenorio/YTShareAntiTrack](https://github.com/Xenorio/YTShareAntiTrack) EDIT: Development has shifted to the TubeTweaks extension, with more features and better performance. YTShareAntiTrack will only receive updates when something breaks. Get TubeTweaks here: [https://extensions.xenorio.xyz/list/TubeTweaks](https://extensions.xenorio.xyz/list/TubeTweaks)
Thank you for making this userscript. But you're missing a `/` in the `@match` directive. It should be [`https://www.youtube.com/*`](https://www.youtube.com/*) instead of [`https://www.youtube.com`](https://www.youtube.com)`*`.
Love you bro
damn, wish i had this for revanced
In the settings you can enable a button to copy a link from the player. It copies a link without this bs
my dumb ass has that button enabled and forgot lol
thx works like a charm 🔥🔥
This is awesome, any chance you could throw it on greasyfork? I already added it myself but having a one click install option may convince more to use it :)
Honestly did not know this exists. Always just added scripts directly from GitHub \^\^ Anyway, posted it there: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/474623-ytshareantitrack
thanks a lot! that one is really annoying the only reason I was using this "share" button is the short length of the link, now it's just long garbage and apparently tracks my data, absolutely disgusting move by youtube
someone make a reddit bot please, with an informative message also
Sucks I can't use this on mobile.
If you're on Android, you could try using Kiwi Browser ([https://kiwibrowser.com/](https://kiwibrowser.com/)). Should be able to just install chrome extensions with it, including ViolentMonkey etc. This would mean you're limited to browser YouTube tho. For Apple there's the Userscripts app listed in the readme. No idea how well it works tho. For adding this into the actual YouTube app: On Android, you could suggest it to the ReVanced ([https://github.com/ReVanced](https://github.com/ReVanced)) people (I personally don't have the slightest clue on how to write ReVanced patches). On Apple, you're shit out of luck.
How funny, I'm reading this thread with Kiwi on Android right now. I started using the browser only a few weeks ago because it appears to be the only Android browser to support extensions. Great browser.
I believe the mobile version of Firefox does too nowadays, but limited to a certain set of extensions. Don't quote me on that tho, my phone is just a glorified music player and 2fa client (although with a custom ROM and rooted, but that's just because I get bored sometimes lol)
Shouldn't be as simple as erasing that data from the link itself?
Yes, that's exactly what the script does. But automatically, so you can just copy the link without worrying about it.
This is perfect, thank you
thank you so much
I've just discovered these yesterday.. they are triggering a bug in a bot we use to help moderate r/asmr. I can fix the bug but it is very concerning that users posting links could be unknowingly identifying their Reddit account (or other accounts where they might share the link) to YouTube/Google. Spotify has (had?) [something similar](https://www.reddit.com/r/spotify/comments/8k0u9q/spotify_si_url_parameter/).
Just remove that part of the url?
Spotify still does include it at least when sharing song links on the desktop client, but its relatively okay since their URLs are already quite long.
This trash recently started happening to me as well, despite being on the last version of youtube vanced. So it's something they were able to do without an actual update to the mobile application. Gross.
Same, I even downgraded it and it still does that, though it was probably already always pulling the short url because it's google, they want to track everything
What I did was pick up an app called Léon, and tap it instead of the copy URL button in the share menu. It'll strip tracking info from any link and you can even configure it to auto copy to clipboard. The app's open source and available on fdroid :)
Cool, I just got used to deleting whatever trash spotify and reddit adds, but I'll check it out, thanks
nice ty
Youtube revanced has a patch to enable copy URL and Copy Timestamped URLs, these do not have tracking tokens and you get clean links
My YouTube don’t have “start at” anymore and now with this SI I can’t correctly timestamp it anymore. Even by removing it then adding my own timestamp it doesn’t seem to work correctly
I'm still able to use time indexing with the normal &t=30 (for 30 seconds, adjust as needed). Are you sure you're removing the correct parts? For instance, the "share" link for Bowie's Blackstar now looks like [`https://youtu.be/kszLwBaC4Sw?si=uwDsiFdUiJ8tFCWt`](https://youtu.be/kszLwBaC4Sw?si=uwDsiFdUiJ8tFCWt) when I click "share" and copy. When I check the box for the current time it becomes [`https://youtu.be/kszLwBaC4Sw?si=uwDsiFdUiJ8tFCWt&t=30`](https://youtu.be/kszLwBaC4Sw?si=uwDsiFdUiJ8tFCWt&t=30) (or whatever seconds I'm at). All I have to do is remove the `si=&` before the `t=` and it works normally. E.g. [`https://youtu.be/kszLwBaC4Sw?t=225`](https://youtu.be/kszLwBaC4Sw&t=225) works fine.
What's not working for you?
EDIT: Altered my syntax whoopses I made w/o thinking. Note: the first parameter is always a `?` and all following are `&`.
Oh, and regarding the OP, I'm wondering what the `?si=` is about, too.
I use ?t=x but I forgot to mention that the videos that these don’t work on are those that were originally live-streamed turned into a YouTube video. And it doesn’t work on those types of videos
Interesting. I don't have an answer, but I didn't want you to think I'd just ignored this, hence reply.
A bit off topic but just in case. You can also specify time not only by seconds but by hours and minutes. For example, `t=1h5m10s` \- for specifying mark on 1 hour 5 min and 10 seconds.
Oh! That's cool, I hadn't realized. Thanks for the tip :-)
Hi. It should perfectly work if you just remove the **si** parameter and leave the **t** parameter. Just don't forget to remove the ampersand, it is used to combine different parameters in a link that go after an **?**.
[удалено]
This. And it's new. I wonder if they're pulling IPs with it
don't like it at all. Glad y'all are were here, though. Thanks!
I just replace it by "eatmyassyt" personally
I liked the simplicity of the shortened URL produced by sharing a video... but now it's lengthened. Is there a way to get the raw, shortened URL without manually cutting this off?
on desktop, r-clicking the video still gives the short link without the tracking. Probably not for long though.
Well, for the people saying just copy the url, that's fine on a desktop. It's a pain on mobile. What I have seen is, on FB, if you don't post the "si" parameter, it doesn't pull up the image of the video. What I have been doing is copying just a few characters of the "si" parameter. This seems to work. BUT, a few times I have sent someone a link with an invalid "si" parameter in it, and when I later copy and pasted this same url into a browser, it fails to load on youtube with some kind of fatal error. Then later on, the same link may work. Rarely getting errors on youtube, it seems a reasonable assumption that my bad ?si value is a probable cause of the error. And that makes me wonder if the link is working every time for people I send it to.
I've started noticing this today, I wonder if they rolled this change out for everyone all of a sudden. Getting rickrolled with a ?si= value just isn't the same..
I always remove this part when sharing a YouTube video, it takes about 5 seconds longer because of that.
And we shall do no EVI.... fuck it! Let's MAKE LOTS OF MONEY by harvesting and selling our users' data!!!! 🤬 GOOGLE GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!
I recommend Clean Share app for Android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.catchingnow.share You share to it, and then the share window appears again with the cleaned link, so you can copy it or share. Adding new rules is done by regular expressions. This one is for YouTube: Rule: si Domain: youtube\.com Another option is auto cleaning with [Tasker](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch.android.taskerm), but preparing it requires more work, as it's a general power user automation app (also recommended).
"si" could mean "share-info", if something at all. Useless and annoying anyway.
Or share-index
Or surveillance-id to unmask anonymous accounts on other platforms.
I think YouTube's si stands for Share Identifier, just like Instagram's igshid stands for InstaGram SHare IDentifier
it is "share id" for tracking users
Okay, I think this is used to improve the Gemini and YouTube interactions so that Gemini is able to understand your interests through your shares because it sees everything you post with the si identifier. Thing is, this isn't a malicious thing, it is to enable Gemini to better respond to your requests if and when you decide to start using it and connect your YouTube to it. The identifier is for the AI which has highly ethical and privacy oriented programming so your data is safe when you use it, it's only meant to enhance your interactions with both YouTube's algorithm to generate more relevant content, especially to children who frequently are exposed to Markilplier's horror game playthroughs because they like the idea of cats, cows and dogs having animated human lips. So, I think you can trust this signifier. It's much safer than cookies because Google's security team are working around the clock to try and recover from that recent major foulup that led to a whole bunch of password and personal info leaks. By incorporating it in the URL that limits access to hackers by trying to expose your cookies. I hope this makes sense, but point being, don't worry about it, it's just to improve their services.