Consider using colorlink option of hyperref

[larsfu]

As digital thesis submission is the new norm, the hyperref features actually have become useful. Hence, I would consider it nice to have a sensible link formatting style by default, like

\usepackage{hyperref}
\hypersetup{
    pdfusetitle,
    unicode,
    colorlinks,
    linkcolor={blue!50!black},
    citecolor={blue!50!black},
    urlcolor={blue!70!black}
}

(or any other colors of your choice) and thereby disabling the hideous boxes around links.