Blocking Hyperlink Auditing Tracking Pings with Extensions

With Chrome, Safari, and Edge enabling the tracking feature called Hyperlink Auditing, or Pings, by default without a way to disable them, users will need to rely on browser extensions to block them going forward.

For those who are not familiar with hyperlink auditing, or Pings, it is an HTML feature that allows sites to track when a link is clicked. Creating hyperlink auditing URLs is very easy, as you can simply create a normal hyperlink HTML tag, but also include a ping="[url]" variable as shown below. 

When a user clicks on a ping link, the browser will connect to the main URL, but also connect to the URL in the ping= setting. This ping URL can then be used to track what site the link was on and where the link was going.

As Chrome, Edge, Safari, Firefox developers feel that this tracking feature is a performance improvement, they have all decided to enable this feature by default without a way to disable it. They feel that if they disable this feature, site owners will switch to JavaScript trackers, which are worse for performance.

With most popular browsers now enabling this feature by default, with Firefox doing so in the future, the only way to disable hyperlink auditing is through the use of browser addons and extension.

For those who want to retain control over whether this feature can be used, below are three extensions that allow you to disable hyperlink auditing pings in Chrome and Firefox.

Ping Blocker for Chrome

The Ping Blocker extension for Google Chrome will examine requests made by the browser and if it is a Ping request, will block it.

Users can tell if a ping link has been blocked by opening the Chrome developer tools and clicking on the Network tab. A blocked ping will be displayed as blocked:other as shown in the image below.

Simple Ping Blocker for Firefox

Simple Ping Blocker is a Firefox addon that will monitor web connections for pings, and if detected, will cancel them.

uBlock Origin for Chrome and Firefox

The uBlock Origin ad blocker also has the ability to block hyperlink auditing pings. uBlock Origin will block pings by default and the setting can be configured from the extension's options screen.

H/T: Ghacks.net