A correspondent asked me how I get "clean" URLs using Google Search.
For those unaware, until several years ago Google would provide clean URLs as part of the search results. For example, if you Googled using the following search term:
MAPUG
you'd receive this result along with this URL (via right-click and a "Copy link location" in the context menu in Firefox and similar in other browsers) as the first hit:
Archive of Mapug-Astronomy Homepage ...
Today you'd receive a 219-character-long URL embedded with tracking info and who knows what else that looks like this unholy mess:
2014.02.02 20:11 Archive of Mapug-Astronomy Homepage ...I write a lot of technical papers and I cite references via URLs so folks can corroborate my writings. What Google has been returning for several years now is totally unacceptable for writers who need "clean" URLs to their sources.
So I wrote a kwik'n'dirty C command line program that accepts the mangled Google URL and returns a clean version per this example:
$ fug
whose output, "
The fug program worked fine but became extremely tedious to use 100s of times a day.
And then I "stumbled upon" a Firefox addon that does the same cleaning of both Google and Yandex mangled URLs (noting Yandex is Russian search:
The Firefox addon is named "Google/Yandex search link fix" as you can see in these 2 small screenshots (Linux and Windows):
I don't know if the add-on is available for other browsers since I only use Firefox on my *BSD, Linux, OpenIndiana, Solaris, UNIX, and Windows systems.
For Firefox the plugin is available here:
If you've been pulling out your hair in frustration of Google's mangled results, this add-on should allow you to keep what hair is left. :-)
Thad