What don't you like about "tiny url" services (tinyurl.com, bit.ly)?

2 pointslaxk4 comments

... and what do you like?

I dislike that I don't know what I'm about to be redirected to.

I agree. I usually mouse-over a link and check where it's being redirected to in the Firefox status bar, but I haven't seen this option for links that have been shortened.

I never really understood it, and would probably click on more links in Twitter and other places if I could see for myself if the shortened link was legit.

There's a greasemonkey userscript which automatically expands a lot of shortened URLs. Just search the userscript repository for Tinyurl decoder (it supports a lot of services including tinyurl and bit.ly).

I don't like that the permanence of the link relies on the continued existence of a third-party service.

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