Git.io no longer accepts new URLs

https://github.blog/changelog/2022-01-11-git-io-no-longer-accepts-new-urls/

by _6mdd • 5 years ago

70 56 5 years ago

cxr4• 5 years ago

Git.io (the "GitHub URL Shortener") was only ever for GitHub-hosted projects to use, which had the effect of further conflating GitHub and Git to an even worse degree. It always struck me as borderline scummy, since GitHub was of course aware of this, but then again they've knowingly benefited from misconceptions about the Git/GitHub relationship for a long time, so it's not out of line with the established MO.

pizza234• 5 years ago

Several companies have their own URL shorteners (Amazon, Youtube...); this is nothing new or wrong.

It's actually reassuring to know that one can it in the code (comments) knowing that the service provider doesn't do anything dodgy and that the links are reasonably long-lived (as a matter of fact, Github is not discontinuing already existing URLs).

quadrangle• 5 years ago

That's not what the other comment was complaining about. If it were GitHub.io that would be fine.

They are saying that GitHub has had a long interest in people thinking that Git is something you only do with GitHub, reducing people from thinking about using Git without GitHub. Of course, to be clear, Git is a 100% independent project that existed before GitHub and GitHub has ZERO claim to anything about Git, it just uses it.

cxr4• 5 years ago

How you walked away with the understanding you apparently did based on what I wrote is a mystery.

Git ≠ GitHub; claiming the git.io domain and then using it exclusively for GitHub URLs is distasteful.

pteraspidomorph• 5 years ago

They're not discontinuing them for now. You already can't create new URLs, but they will be deprecating the service "in the future". What does that entail?

blendergeek• 5 years ago

If GitHub had wanted a GitHub specific URL shortener and did not want to further perpetuate confusion about the relationship between git and GitHub, they could have gone with gh.io, ghub.io, hub.io, or any other domain name that isn't 'git.io'. 'git.io' sounds like it would probably be an official domain of 'git'. But, 'git.io' is (was) actually a URL shortener for a specific hosted service whose only relationship to 'git' is that GitHub uses the 'git' software for version control. GitHub is not maintained by the git team nor is it a project of the git team. Git can be (and is widely) used outside of GitHub.

GP is not complaining about a GitHub specific url shortener.

sdflhasjd• 5 years ago

Very reminiscent of Google's `web.dev` site, which I find almost disgusting.

outloudvi• 5 years ago

But interestingly Google's really dominant in the Web, including W3C, WICG, Chromium etc. They are just able to somehow control the "Web".

ufo• 5 years ago

Does anyone know where one may find more info about what git.io used to be and why it might have been deprecated?

iRomain• 5 years ago

IMO, they've found a better use of the domain. Maybe something à la web.dev?

remram2• 5 years ago

https://github.blog/2011-11-10-git-io-github-url-shortener/

It was a URL-shortening service for GitHub URLs. Nothing more, nothing less. You would put in a URL, and get a new, short URL git.io/... that would redirect to what you put in.

rusbus• 5 years ago

Am I the only one who has never heard of nor seen a git.io shortened URL?

placatedmayhem2• 5 years ago

This post was my first introduction to it too. Searching for "git.io" on github.com, including the quotes, returns a number of repositories using git.io links -- "2M+" if their search is to be believed.

city41• 5 years ago

I'd never heard of it either, and I'm a very active github user. There's just so much "stuff" out there now, there's no way to keep track of it all.

placatedmayhem2• 5 years ago

I do wish any time there was a service deprecation notice, the service providers would give some detail as to why it's going offline. Lack of use, difficulty to maintain, expense, etc. With that said, I don't think we're owed any explanation, especially for free-to-use services.

Specific to this service, I never personally used it, but I wonder how many project links will break when the service does finally go offline.

maupin• 5 years ago

Sounds like that would be an excellent resource for me to learn about services that - now that they're being retired - I could wish I knew about a few years earlier...

dapak• 5 years ago

I wish there was more background on what/why git.io was a thing, as well as why it's now being discontinued in this announcement. First time hearing of this service.

tyingq• 5 years ago

I think this is the original 2011 announcement:

https://github.blog/2011-11-10-git-io-github-url-shortener/

cpach• 5 years ago

Do people still use URL shorteners…? I would guess the usage has declined in the past 10 years or so.

jdlyga• 5 years ago

It's good for comments in code, and back in the old days of twitter before they added in native support for url's in tweets

dewey3• 5 years ago

I think it's bad for comments in code. If you have the full URL you could at least try to find an archived version for it on archive.org if the link shortener went away.

eurasiantiger• 5 years ago

Most relevant sites provide their own short urls now. All 3rd party shorteners are monetized by tracking and selling the data, so I wouldn’t be surprised nobody uses them.

sergiotapia• 5 years ago

They are useful for transactional SMS messages when you want to remind someone of an appointment or an event. There is a character limit in SMS if you want to keep it to one message and not annoy your customers.

scrollaway• 5 years ago

They’re also a great tool for that as transactional sms messages don’t really have permanence, so the urls disappearing in the future is a non issue.

rsync• 5 years ago

I built a url shortened in 2016 and still maintain it now:

0x.co

… gets light usage …

swilliamsio• 5 years ago

Twitter's link shortener gets tonnes of use. Seems like every external link in every tweet is converted to a t.co link instead to save characters.

SalimoS• 5 years ago

I’m sure that the real reason for Twitter to use t.co is analytics and more control over the platform.

playpause• 5 years ago

That’s just Twitter’s redirection proxy. It’s not people using it as a URL shortener. It is Twitter automatically linking all URLs in tweets to go via t.co for tracking.

dewey3• 5 years ago

No doubt that it's used for tracking but "clicks" on the URL could probably be measured in other on-page ways too. One additional reason is probably that if there's a spam URL detected they can just block the short URL and the problem goes away instantly.

technion• 5 years ago

NSW Police need to keep making Facebook posts stating "our last SMS was not a scam" because people keep questioning them. Maybe not use bit.ly links in broadcast messages.

https://www.facebook.com/nswpoliceforce

0x00000002• 5 years ago

Wow, git.io was the first product I found a vulnerability and sent a responsible disclosure, more than 10 years ago.

They used to have a nice thank you page, but they got rid of it when they rolled out their bug bounty program.

I wonder if this means git.io short links will be going away, I still use mine on my CV and elsewhere.

latexr• 5 years ago

I wonder if this means git.io short links will be going away

From the announcement:

Existing URLs will continue to be accessible

0x00000002• 5 years ago

Yeah but for how long?

That's like Google saying "G Suite Legacy will continue to be free..."

beermonster• 5 years ago

Also from the announcement :

“.. but we encourage using one of the many URL shortening services that are available, instead of git.io, as we will be deprecating the tool in the future.”

gkoberger• 5 years ago

For anyone curious, I found this early blog post announcing it.

https://github.blog/2011-11-10-git-io-github-url-shortener/

It seems like it was built by some Github employees back during the URL shortening phase as just a fun hack project to learn a new database, although a few services implemented it to shorten Github URLs.

cwbrandsma• 5 years ago

No, no, no. Didn't you read the rest of this thread! This was all part of a well coordinated, thought out, grand conspiracy to place github.com as the de-facto git repository. Not some late night, quick turnaround, "hey, this would be cool" project created by two people for lulz. After all, it would be impossible to create an effective URL shortener with one developer and a late night with a case of beer (no...don't look at me, it took me a day and a half).

Get with the narrative!

cxr4• 5 years ago

Who is making the kind of claims that you claim they're making?

connor4312• 5 years ago

This is a sad day for me. The obscurity of git.io, along with its nested obscurity of the ability to create vanity links, let me grab https://git.io/8. It looks like that'll go away one day, I wonder what will become of the domain itself; it's certainly a six figure property.

remram2• 5 years ago

I remember there being a form to create a URL (which would get you a random git.io/xxx) but picking your short URL had to go through an API. At least that's how I created mine.

TimLeland• 5 years ago

If anyone is looking for an alternative URL Shortener you should checkout T.LY

https://t.ly/

teddyh• 5 years ago

Note: the .ly top-level domain is Libya. Perhaps not the best place to use as a single point of control for your addresses.

chrisweekly• 5 years ago

Aren't there downsides to using a Libyan TLD?

wolpoli• 5 years ago

I guess that's another Url shortener for Archive Team [1] to backup

[1] https://wiki.archiveteam.org/

ryan-c• 5 years ago

It turned into a bit of a malware redirect cesspool, and I guess they didn't want to police it.

I ran across the issue about two weeks before this blog post:

https://twitter.com/ryancdotorg/status/1475673195654959108

https://twitter.com/ryancdotorg/status/1475859899099746308

Basically, bad actors were setting up open javascript redirects on github pages, then using git.io to redirect to arbitrary target URLs.

rajishx• 5 years ago

I have used this to refer some github links/code/lines in my code/commit, too bad it was fun while it was lasted

Git.io no longer accepts new URLs

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