The URL shortener situation is out of control
hanselman.com
The URL shortener situation is out of control
1–10 of 79 posts
Re: The URL shortener situation is out of control
#2> Redirects are being abused and I don't see any work happening in HTTP 2.0 to change it.
I agree that this is an unfortunate pattern, but what exactly could the HTTP spec do to change it? The only thing I can think of is limiting the number of chained redirects, although I don't see browsers implementing that if longer chains are even remotely common.
Re: The URL shortener situation is out of control
#3> Redirects are being abused and I don't see any work happening in HTTP 2.0 to change it. I agree that this is an unfortunate pattern, but what exactly could the HTTP spec do to change it? The only thing I can think of is limiting the number of chained redirects, although I don't see browsers implementing that if longer chains are even remotely common.
I think the other issue is that these aren't being used as URL shorteners any more (in the sense they were when they were used for Twitter's 140 character limit). They are tracking URLs, gathering data about you at each hop.
Re: The URL shortener situation is out of control
#4> Redirects are being abused and I don't see any work happening in HTTP 2.0 to change it. I agree that this is an unfortunate pattern, but what exactly could the HTTP spec do to change it? The only thing I can think of is limiting the number of chained redirects, although I don't see browsers implementing that if longer chains are even remotely common.
If I remember correctly, there was an old (very old) project with reversible links called Project Xanadu.
if my sketchy memory serves me, it was based around using a currency and updatable links. Along with that, the idea was that you could also share segments of movies and music with the hyperlink system.
I'm pretty sure it died a pitiful death due to it being completely secret until after HTTP got ingrained.
Re: The URL shortener situation is out of control
#5People are using shorteners on shortened links, this is the problem.
The most obvious one is Twitter, always using it's own service regardless.
Re: The URL shortener situation is out of control
#6> Redirects are being abused and I don't see any work happening in HTTP 2.0 to change it. I agree that this is an unfortunate pattern, but what exactly could the HTTP spec do to change it? The only thing I can think of is limiting the number of chained redirects, although I don't see browsers implementing that if longer chains are even remotely common.
Why do we need a technical solution. My understanding is that the author is arguing for a change in how URL shorteners are being used, not a technical change making this impossible. The problem is that once a technology exists, it will be abused. Sometimes this abuse is just a clever and useful hack, and sometimes it is annoying and anti-usable.
Re: The URL shortener situation is out of control
#7People are using shorteners on shortened links, this is the problem. The most obvious one is Twitter, always using it's own service regardless.
My guess would be for analytics, so it knows how its own service is being used and who is accessing websites through it. It comes with a convenient feature that bad URLs can be taken down on its site.
Re: The URL shortener situation is out of control
#8http://urlte.am/ was a URL shortener rescue project but it appears to have stalled.
Re: The URL shortener situation is out of control
#9We could put a stop to marketing redirects tomorrow if we didn't allow redirects to set cookies.
(Or perhaps only allowed a cookie if the redirect was served by the same domain as the target domain.)
Re: The URL shortener situation is out of control
#10> Every redirect is a one more point of failure, one more domain that can rot, one more server that can go down, one more layer between me and the content.
These are all good reasons, but are there any real users who are actually being affected by these issues? If it is just a theoretical concern, then I don't think it is reasonable to call the situation "officially out of control".