February 9, 2015

How to Turn Off Tynt, the Most Annoying Thing on the Internet


 

You know how when you copy text from certain websites, it pastes with a bunch of junk you didn’t mean to copy? Like promotional crap for the website?

Business Insider adds “Read more:” and the URL:

Daily Mail adds that and Twitter and Facebook links:

This is a super annoying service, designed to boost SEO, provided by a company called Tynt.

Screenshot: http://www.tynt.com

 

Places pay for this service. A place I used to work (briefly) paid for this service. It was super annoying! One day a colleague showed me a little known secret to turn it off and made my life immeasurably better.
I now share this little nugget with you:

 

Step 1) Open a browser.

Step 2) Type in the URL of an offending site.

Step 3) add ?disableTracer=on to the end of the URL. (example: http://www.businessinsider.com?disableTracer=on)

Step 4) Press Enter.

Step 5) You’re done!

You’ll have to do this for every browser you use and every site, but trust me, if you visit one of these sites often, it’s worth it.

UPDATE: An even easier way to turn this off for all websites is to go here, and just click “opt out.” You’ll still have to do it in each browser but you won’t have to do it for every site. (Thanks to indispensable friend Stefan Becket for the tip.)

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Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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