Back in 2022, I wrote this rather grumpy post on Mastodon, the federated social media platform. @
[email protected] EdenMastodon enforces a "noreferrer" on all external links.I have mixed feelings about that.As a blogger, I want to see *where* visitors are coming from. I also like to see (and sometimes join in) with the conversations they're having.But, I get that people want privacy and don't want to "leak" where they're visiting from.Is it such a bad thing to tell a website "I was…
FWIW they should be configurable in your browser, either directly or with a plug-in.
The post makes a pretty reasonable argument as to why it’s a good idea.
Yeah, browser vendors think the same thing, since they are part of the commercial web. Anyway, at minimum, sending referer should be opt-in rather than opt-out.
According to ths post it will be opt-in, on the instance side.
So smaller instances where there-might be risks associated will be opted out by default, while large instances that might want the attention and where individual users stand out less can opt in.