URL Shorteners are evil, here's one to prove it.

http://mug.gd

by secos • 17 years ago

86 57 17 years ago

mug.gd

CrazedGeek3• 17 years ago

Phishing has never been more fun!

Anyway, here's my feeble attempt: http://mug.gd/96W

timf2• 17 years ago

spatial points?

CrazedGeek3• 17 years ago

Eh, I couldn't think of anything clever for points. (I did say feeble...)

mdemare• 17 years ago

This is why you should use images for titles: http://mug.gd/QSEu

metra• 17 years ago

Can't you just look at the location bar and see that the url is still mug.gd?

Or is this a joke and I missed it?

slig• 17 years ago

We can, normal users probably still don't know that.

tolmasky• 17 years ago

I think the idea is that a lot of these url shorteners now also include their bars on top.

olliesaunders• 17 years ago

Oh gawd, I really hate that.

secos6• 17 years ago

exactly.

lloydarmbrust• 17 years ago

Both Facebook and LinkedIn also do this with external links from their sites, but that makes sense coming from M$-esque companies.

I guess this is a good point though, as twitter will automagically shorten URLs that you enter anyway.

begemot• 17 years ago

Isn't it a bad idea to retrieve any url since then an attacker could use this service to sql inject without leaving his IP on the victims log?

JoachimSchipper• 17 years ago

Meh. There are plenty of open redirects out there anyway, and using one you made yourself has the disadvantage that you'll be visible in the Referrer logs.

brown9-2• 17 years ago

I'd imagine most of these services just do GETs, which negates most of that possibility.

algorias• 17 years ago

Beaten with their own weapons:

http://mug.gd/l5g1W

bradgessler• 17 years ago

I just made them an awesome and fun URL shortening service!

http://mug.gd/IUyt0

ramchip• 17 years ago

Amusing example :) I wasn't aware just how many posts on TC are about Twitter.

secos6• 17 years ago

Yeah, I picked that because no matter what time of day or week you look at the site, there is /always/ a Twitter post on the front page of TC.

fbailey• 17 years ago

I noticed that one URL shortener is engaging in massive Cookie Dropping, as soon as you click on a link you add 50 affiliate cookies ... nice business modell, not so nice service

dc2k08• 17 years ago

Which one?

lupin_sansei• 17 years ago

they are also bad in that if one goes out of business or loses their database all the links on the web that use the shortener stop working forever

RevRal• 17 years ago

I think this is the best point against URL shorteners.

megamark162• 17 years ago

I'll second that. The whole point of the internet (at least as I see it) of linking relevant documents together is pretty much lost when those links are fragile shortened urls. Maybe if there was a markup, similar to the img alt tag, that allowed you to say "Here's the short one, if that doesn't work, here's the full one".

The real issue, as I see it, is that people solved the wrong problem. I see this a lot at my new job, where they created bigger problems for themselves by asking the wrong questions and therefor solving the wrong problem. Isn't the main reason people use shortened URLs so that they can link to things on sites like Twitter where every character counts? If that is the case then the real problem isn't that URLs are too long, it's that Twitter counts them against you, instead of allowing people to put actual hyperlinks (you know, <a href="xyz">Title</a>) in their tweets. If the only part that counted against your character count was the Title section then we wouldn't have this problem. They could even simplify the markup somehow to make it more user friendly then actual HTML.

If I've misunderstood the problem that URL shorteners are trying to solve then I apologize for my off the mark rant.

Thanks Mark

ubernostrum2• 17 years ago

I think it's the same as the argument against URLs -- anything you link to may end up going away in the future. Hasn't destroyed the Web yet.

naz2• 17 years ago

Cool idea, terrible implementation

secos6• 17 years ago

What do you dislike about it? I know its not the best, and would love critical feedback on how it could be better.

naz2• 17 years ago

It immediately displays a bar at the top of the altered page making it too obvious

tzury• 17 years ago

Use Firefox's extension LongURLPlease http://www.longurlplease.com/ and bring some sense into all these tweets

buster• 17 years ago

now that's a neat plugin. Wish i'd be for chrome too, though. Nice anyway :)

simonw• 17 years ago

I dislike URL shorteners because they increase the chance of link rot. mug.gd doesn't prove they are evil though - it proves that links are evil.

secos6• 17 years ago

very good point. That is basically what I am after... they hide the true origin and intent when they hide the content in an iframe.

gvb• 17 years ago

Oh man, that came at a good time.

The previous HN story is "Korea's Internet Is Mired in a Microsoft Monoculture (chosun.com)" so I did a URL shortener substituting [company] for "Korea." The only problem was that I could not selectively substitute for both "Korea" and "Korean" (I tried ordering them, didn't help), so Korean became [company]n.

Mug.gd doesn't say how long the shortened url lasts, so I hope my gentle readers click the link before it rots. :-/

jjs• 17 years ago

Can you recursively mug a mug.gd link?

there• 17 years ago

i'm still waiting for malware to propagate by a shortened url that goes to a legitimate site, builds up credibility (retweeted, etc.) and then is swapped out on the shortening site to start redirecting to a different page that looks like the original but does some drive-by download or exploits a zero-day vulnerability.

there would be hundreds of inbound links pointing to it coming from trusted sources, and could even use a legitimate shortener like bit.ly but just make the bit.ly link direct to some other shortener that nobody would notice (because the browser redirection would happen so quickly), then do the switch at that second shortener.

Semiapies• 17 years ago

Or maybe do the same with some kind of internet forum where people blindly click on the links.

pyre2• 17 years ago

Or do the same thing with the link to your 'awesome' blog post... Or change the IP on your domain/subdomain to point somewhere else...

BigO• 17 years ago

madlibs anyone?

ivankirigin• 17 years ago

Astoundingly, twitter isn't anywhere on TechCrunch. Sign of the end of times, right?

eam• 17 years ago

I have always been hesitant on clicking shortened URLs. I have trust issues. It's almost like a box of chocolate, you never know what you're going to get!

jusob• 17 years ago

Then it is time for you to use a safe URL shortenner: http://safe.mn/ :-) IE, these URLs could lead to a "dangerous" website, but you are warned before reaching the final destination: http://safe.mn/-M http://safe.mn/WP http://safe.mn/TU http://safe.mn/Te

jerf• 17 years ago

This is a mighty strange time and place to be pitching a URL shortening service.

techiferous• 17 years ago

"URL Shorteners are evil"

That's why I always use http://www.hugeurl.com/

kree10• 17 years ago

I am partial to http://urlshorteningservicefortwitter.com/

GBKS• 17 years ago

Not all are evil, try Hapylink at http://hapylink.com

Goladus2• 17 years ago

Trust is a powerful thing. You can get a lot more done when you have trust. It would be a shame to break that trust for no real reason other than it seemed like a clever idea at the time.

secos6• 17 years ago

The trust you speak of is an illusion. Security through obscurity at best.

I would rather warn of the dangers.

Goladus2• 17 years ago

Trust is a risk. Illusion really isn't an appropriate term.

Although in this case it's a somewhat peripheral issue, I realize there are other issues.

URL Shorteners are evil, here's one to prove it.

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