Post by @drahardja@sfba.social

Hey #Fediverse can I ask you a favor?

Please don’t post URLs that have been shortened. Link-shortening services can not only potentially *track* your interactions and add telemetry to track your behaviors, they can also *break* and make your links unusable.

You can use services like https://urlexpander.net or install an app (I like Link Unshortener (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/link-unshortener/id1506953658)) to find the ultimate destination of a shortened link, and then post that instead.

Remember, all URLs in #Mastodon count as 23 characters, no matter how long the actual URL is, so there really is no benefit to shortening your URLs.

App Store

Link Unshortener App - App Store

Download Link Unshortener by Jeff Johnson on the App Store. See screenshots, ratings and reviews, user tips, and more apps like Link Unshortener.

URLExpander.net

Short Link Expander – Reveal & Expand Shortened URLs

Reveal and convert hidden or shortened links to original long URLs – fast, secure, and without tracking.

#fediverse #mastodon

8 Replies

12 Boosts

Dave Rahardja

@drahardja@sfba.social 12 hr. ago

Me: Don’t use link shorteners

Random people: Here’s my link shortener, you should use it

Cat 🐈🥗 (D.Burch)

@catsalad@infosec.exchange 48 min. ago

@drahardja Don’t use link shorteners? What about link enlongeners?

snaeqe

@snaeqe@chaos.social 40 min. ago

@catsalad
Don't cause another Elon-gate.
@drahardja

Dave Rahardja

@drahardja@sfba.social 45 min. ago

@catsalad https://www.reallylong.link/

Honorable mention:
https://creepylink.com/

CreepyLink

Make your links look as suspicious as possible

https://www.reallylong.link/

Dave Rahardja

@drahardja@sfba.social 12 hr. ago

If you’re familiar with command line tools, you can use `curl` to get the final URL:

```
curl -ILsw '%{url_effective}' -o /dev/null [URL]
```

Replace `[URL]` with the shortened URL.

Vincent B. 🌱

@vincent@floss.social 14 hr. ago

@drahardja @souverain À bas les liens flip.it ;)

Souverain 🛡️

@souverain@social.souverain.ovh 12 hr. ago

@vincent @drahardja j'aimerais bien pouvoir supprimer cette option mais elle n'existe pas dans l'App (ou alors j'ai mal regardé)

Vincent B. 🌱

@vincent@floss.social 12 hr. ago

@souverain Je n’ai plus l’application depuis des années, mais ouvrir le lien dans un navigateur pour ensuite copier coller l’adresse réelle devrait suffire, même si ce n’est pas « pratique ».