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Google is shutting down its goo.gl URL shortening service

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Re: Google is shutting down its goo.gl URL shortening service

#41

Post by solarkraft »

bredren wrote: post #32
iforgotpassword wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. Only thing I'm still strongly dependent on is gmail. I don't really think that's going away anytime soon, but out of principle I'd like to move away from it. Takes a lot of energy unfortunately and you probably need to keep a redirect in place for a long time just in case...

Is there a self-hosted web mail service w ux like gmail, that you can migrate to smoothly and pay a license for? I would consider this move. I just assume no one has ux even close. It would take me at least a year to fully transition from one gmail address.

Not self-hosted, but I am very happy with Zoho [0]. They target companies and their free plan includes lots of features like support for your own domain. The web UI is comparable to GMail (indeed in parts I prefer it) and they offer a very good Android app as well.

[0]: https://www.zoho.com/mail/

Re: Google is shutting down its goo.gl URL shortening service

#42

Post by afandian »

realworldview wrote: post #39
samuell wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope this doesn't change too. Felt I had to use it to link a humongous wikidata SPARQL query in a (software) research paper recently.

Please consider using DOI’s for this http://www.doi.org/factsheets/DOIKeyFacts.html

Agreed. Figshare is a good service for this. In addition all the publishing infrastructure is in place.

Re: Google is shutting down its goo.gl URL shortening service

#43

Post by solarkraft »

weinzierl wrote: post #15

The last time I used an URL shortener was in the old days when Twitter still counted every character of the URL against the 140 char limit. I'm curious what use cases URL shortening services have nowadays?

- Tracking

- Sharing (Looks better when written out [like often social media posts], is easier to remember)

Re: Google is shutting down its goo.gl URL shortening service

#44

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #35
dosshell wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not understand. Please say what you mean in your message instead of just dropping some urls:s. For example now, your url:s goes to this submission and an unknown (!?). If you had written what you meant at least I could understand your point.

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: Google is shutting down its goo.gl URL shortening service

#45

Post by sattoshi »

bredren wrote: post #32
iforgotpassword wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. Only thing I'm still strongly dependent on is gmail. I don't really think that's going away anytime soon, but out of principle I'd like to move away from it. Takes a lot of energy unfortunately and you probably need to keep a redirect in place for a long time just in case...

Is there a self-hosted web mail service w ux like gmail, that you can migrate to smoothly and pay a license for? I would consider this move. I just assume no one has ux even close. It would take me at least a year to fully transition from one gmail address.

Rainloop is very usable. It just pulls everything in via IMAP. I have scripts in place to handle any filtering and organising I need to do.

Re: Google is shutting down its goo.gl URL shortening service

#46

Post by mintplant »

dosshell wrote: post #33
frou_dh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16722817 https://news.ycombinator.com/b00b00 not very short

I do not understand. Please say what you mean in your message instead of just dropping some urls:s. For example now, your url:s goes to this submission and an unknown (!?). If you had written what you meant at least I could understand your point.

They are examples of a long "short URL" following your specification.

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16722817
might shorten to

    https://news.ycombinator.com/b00b00
which is not very short given the length of the hostname.

Re: Google is shutting down its goo.gl URL shortening service

#47

Post by jfaucett »

cmer wrote: post #23

I'm not sure how you guys feel about this, but personally, I've been avoiding Google services for the last couple of years because I just assume they'll eventually get shut down.

> I'm not sure how you guys feel about this,

Here's my main problems with google and why I've been trying to get away from them as much as possible.

1. Very poor quality customer service. They might have better customer service for things like adwords (I wouldn't know) but as far as everything I have experience with (business services, google cloud) my experience has always been horrible - good luck getting in touch with a human.

2. (as you mention) A high level of insecurity about whether or not a google service will actually be sustained or whether they will drop it and leave all their users hanging to go try out their next big idea.

3. IMHO unethical business practices, mainly when it comes maintaining their monopoly and violating copyright laws [1].

4. The fact that they control so much of an ever more centralized internet. Regardless of however benevolent one may think they are that much power concentrated in the hands of any one entity is likely a dangerous road to tread upon and one I'd rather not risk going down.

1. https://www.quora.com/What-are-examples-of-Google-acting-une...

Re: Google is shutting down its goo.gl URL shortening service

#48

Post by badsectoracula »

cmer wrote: post #23

I'm not sure how you guys feel about this, but personally, I've been avoiding Google services for the last couple of years because I just assume they'll eventually get shut down.

Isn't this something that you should keep in mind for all services? After all they are basically applications you have no code for, running in computers that you do not control, funded by means you individually cannot affect and owned by companies/businesses making decisions you have no say over. Any element of control you cede to others can be used in ways you may not like or want. So if you want to ensure something will continue to exist for as long as you want it, the only way to do it is to have control over that something and either control all of its dependencies or rely only on dependencies that are widely available commodities that you work with through as many open standards as possible.

For example, for web-based services, if you don't want something to go away (or be abused), then your best bet is to run a fully open source implementation of that version on a VPS (VPSes are on computers owned by others, but they are cheap commodities that you can easily replace, replicate and, if necessary, move to dedicated servers or your own machines). Personally i'd also only use simple applications with little to no (preferably no) external dependencies in case i need to pick up the development myself or make modifications.

(of course having said that, i generally avoid web-based applications altogether and instead opt for desktop-based solutions whenever possible - one major reason being control)

Re: Google is shutting down its goo.gl URL shortening service

#49

Post by zorkw4rg »

cmer wrote: post #23

I'm not sure how you guys feel about this, but personally, I've been avoiding Google services for the last couple of years because I just assume they'll eventually get shut down.

I think thats good advice for anything, I would however put the caveat on things that use open protocols. I have no issue using AWS SES (Simple Email Service) because thats just SMTP, I would however never use something like Firebase. Just measure the time it would take you to get rid of it in a project.

I would also never use the sentiment shared on HN much for anything, half of the people here have a stake in their own little proprietary technology they want you to sell :P

Re: Google is shutting down its goo.gl URL shortening service

#50

Post by ptman »

amelius wrote: post #9
cstuder wrote: post #5

I've recently came across a use case for an URL shortener (Entering long API calls on mobile devices) and was looking for a self-hosted solution. Any recommendations? (No public shortening service, only admins can create new shortcuts.)

I'm looking for a URL shortener that tells me how many users clicked the link.

Is that your only requirement? In that case even my very simple one would be enough: https://github.com/ptman/urlredir
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