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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

#51

Post by asaph »

sethammons wrote: post #22
asaph wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it worked well enough for me for a time until I got lazy, got ill, and got rid of the server it was running on. But I was bang on-target about the likelihood of such things disappearing... Oh, the irony...

Kinda the opposite of irony. They said these things disappear. Had they said, "but this one won't," then we would be approaching irony.

My impression was that building his own URL shortenner was undertaken as a mitigation of the risk of other URL shortenners disappearing.

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

#52

Post by oldcynic »

badsectoracula wrote: post #48
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…

Yes it is, but I think - perhaps counter intuitively to some, that the larger the company the larger the risk of being left without the product or service you grow to like. In the case of Google, Microsoft and some others I'm now wary of even trialling things.

Being owned by a major is bad for life expectancy. Being bought out by one is worse. Google are quite probably the pack leader for shuttering services for no obvious reason (Reader etc) and also buying startups to shutter them or turn them into something unrecognisable.

I try to apply this view when choosing all products and services - I'll favour startup and family owned over multinational brand for everything from SaaS to food and clothing and often pay extra to do so. I'd like to think there's still a chance of individual customers mattering to them.

I also favour desktop where possible.

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

#53

Post by amelius »

ptman wrote: post #50
amelius wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Other requirements would be that it is actually hosted somewhere :) and doesn't ever shut down.

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

#54

Post by ValentineC »

solarkraft wrote: post #41
bredren wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

Zoho recently removed IMAP and email forwarding from their free tier (though existing users were grandfathered in), so stay away if you value email portability.

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

#55

Post by noesarlito »

jfaucett wrote: post #40
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...

Yes. I've migrated to other services for just about everything they offer except gmail. I'm still looking but have not found a comparable service in terms of quality and pricing. If anyone has suggestions I would be really interested in hearing them.

FastMail. It’s great. Comparable interface to Gmail - I like it better, even - great customer service, true and reliable IMAP, easy to use your own domain and easy to migrate from Gmail. Also has Calendar and Contact support.

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

#57

Post by downandout »

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.

Bitly does this. Just add a + to the end of any bitly URL to view stats, e.g.:

https://bitly.com/J7SNth+

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

#59

Post by jawnjawn »

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?

It is used heavily by spammers to hide url's. Often, 5 or more shorteners (including less-than-reputable ones) are used in a chain.

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

#60

Post by samuell »

afandian wrote: post #42
realworldview wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Great idea! I'm using figshare but neither me nor colleagues got to think about that.
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