The recent addition of linkid parameter stripping breaks all redirects via go.microsoft.com/fwlink/

[jacobbaratta]

Some generic examples of the link format I'm talking about (with possible additional parameters omitted):

• https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=1234
• https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=1234

It took me quite a bit of time to figure out that this was the extension at fault for breaking these. The behavior created by this extension is that every one of these links would redirect to bing.com (typically either to https://www.bing.com/?ref=go or to https://www.bing.com/?ref=go&pver=&sbp=&os=0&over=&plcid=&olcid=0&clcid=&ar=&sar=&o1=&o2=&o3=&o4=&o5=) instead of redirecting to where the link is supposed to be redirecting to. As these links are ubiquitous across Microsoft various websites for their products & services, this is a pretty huge problem.

Some actual full real-world examples of these links for reproduction/testing:

• https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=858872&clcid=0x409&culture=en-us&country=US (This is the "Sign in" button on https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/onenote/digital-note-taking-app)
• https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=872792&clcid=0x409&culture=en-us&country=US (This is the "Sign up" button on https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/onenote/digital-note-taking-app)
• https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=869155 (This is the link to install the Microsoft Authenticator app from the flow for adding Microsoft Authenticator to a Microsoft account)
• https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=2111639&CLCID=0x409&culture=en-us&country=US&flts=reactbn:1 (This is the "Buy now" button for "Microsoft 365 Family" under the "Compare Microsoft 365 with Office" section header on https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/buy/compare-all-microsoft-365-products)

In terms of a suggested fix for this issue, you're probably either going to need to carve out an exception for go.microsoft.com, or just remove the linkid stripping entirely.

[jparise]

Thanks for the detailed report, @jacobbaratta. I agree with you, and I've removed linkid stripping (#44) in the upcoming version 2.9 release.