Google’s latest consumer version of Chrome, version number 64, just started cleaning up messy referral links for you. Now, when you go to share an item, you’ll no longer see a long tracking string after a link, just the primary link itself, as spotted by Android Police.
This feature now happens automatically when sharing links in Chrome, either by the Share menu or by copying the link and pasting it elsewhere. Even though it slices off the extra bit of the URL, this doesn’t affect referral information. If you choose, you can copy and paste directly from the URL bar to grab the link in entirety.
As Android Police points out, while this is a useful feature, it does have a couple downsides, albeit nitpicky ones. For example, it eliminates anchor tags that will bring a user to a specific part within a longer article, so visiting a link that has been shared in Chrome will land you at the top of the page.
This is only one of many updates that has come with Chrome version 64. It also recently introduced automatic blocks for bad and unwanted ads that violate the Better Ads standards, the ability to mute entire sites that autoplay videos, and HDR support for Windows users.