The HTML5 ping attribute, which allows hyperlink tracking using an asynchronous call, can no longer be disabled in the Safari 12.1 browser.
It is a useful feature, for example, to easily implement custom tracking on a website:
<a ping="/tracking.php" href="https://google.com">Track Click</a>On the other hand it was massively criticized since it was mainly used by advertisers to track clicks on adverts.
The latest version of Safari no longer allows you to disable the click logging with "ping". In the previous versions it could be turned off via the command line:
defaults write com.apple.Safari com.apple.Safari.ContentPageGroupIdentifier.WebKit2HyperlinkAuditingEnabled -bool falseFirefox blocks the ping attribute by default, manual activation is possible. However, Mozilla plans to use this feature in the future without giving the users a shutdown option.
In Chrome, ping is enabled by default, but can still be turned off in the settings with: chrome://flags/#disable-hyperlink-auditing (this feature has been removed from the list of available flags in beta/development versions of Chrome).