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Transitioning Google URL Shortener to Firebase Dynamic Links

developers.googleblog.com

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Re: Transitioning Google URL Shortener to Firebase Dynamic Links

#11

Post by niftich »

russellbeattie wrote: post #5

I wonder why Google is reusing the Firebase brand so much? It doesn't really fit with messaging (GCM -> FCM) or links, among other functions. Seems like an odd choice, even if the backend infrastructure/team is the same. Reminds me of Microsoft reusing "Surface", or prepending "Live" to everything once upon a time...

Firebase is their Mobile-Backend-as-a-Service brand.

The product they're driving customers to, Firebase Dynamic Links, is not really a web URL shortener, but more of a bridge between URLs and in-app links. In this light, it makes sense.

Re: Transitioning Google URL Shortener to Firebase Dynamic Links

#12

Post by pgeorgi »

kirubakaran wrote: post #3

Since they will be continuing to honor existing redirects, do they gain anything by disallowing new redirects? If it is engineering effort they want to save, they can just stop developing new features, right?

It's probably maintenance effort they want to save.

Once the service is locked and statistics are off (ie mid-2019) the entire site could be replaced with an exported set of static files.

Re: Transitioning Google URL Shortener to Firebase Dynamic Links

#13

Post by MR4D »

This has been poorly handled.

I got an email for my company yesterday with one of these links.

Being security conscious, I hovered over the link and suspected a phishing attack.

Given I work in finance, this was the only prudent move I felt I had.

Google is going to see a lot of that over the coming weeks if they can’t improve their communication on this.

Re: Transitioning Google URL Shortener to Firebase Dynamic Links

#16

Post by saurik »

russellbeattie wrote: post #5

I wonder why Google is reusing the Firebase brand so much? It doesn't really fit with messaging (GCM -> FCM) or links, among other functions. Seems like an odd choice, even if the backend infrastructure/team is the same. Reminds me of Microsoft reusing "Surface", or prepending "Live" to everything once upon a time...

I don't know about the "messaging" one... of the big use cases for Firebase was just to send push notifications for numerous channels, and the tech came literally from usage in a chat system (then called Envolve). I haven't looked at this new URL shortener thing yet, though.

Re: Transitioning Google URL Shortener to Firebase Dynamic Links

#18

Post by techsupporter »

MR4D wrote: post #13

This has been poorly handled. I got an email for my company yesterday with one of these links. Being security conscious, I hovered over the link and suspected a phishing attack. Given I work in finance, this was the only prudent move I felt I had. Google is going to see a lot of that over the coming weeks if they can’t improve their communication on this.

> Being security conscious, I hovered over the link and suspected a phishing attack.

> Given I work in finance, this was the only prudent move I felt I had.

At my place of employment, we are instructed to "hover to uncover" every link in an e-mail. Yet every link I get from virtually any automated source reads something like this:

"To accomplish the task you need to accomplish, simply visit us at h t t p s: / / example dot com / some / simple.url.html"

Yet the ACTUAL link is: "h t t p : / / linktracker9 . unrelatedentity4 . subdomain . example dot io / asdflkjawsfq3894gfjwerfgouiewjngwskuvhawesri7gfhwe4i7fghwefv / qwerog9f8weh8w4fhw98ry2938hwf?utm_lol=hahaha&utm_more=roflcopter&utm_howabsolutelylongcanwemakethislink=shadyb1zn3zz&phishing=no&itscool=thisis_definitely_not_phishing&utm_feed=buzz"

I understand, but do not accept, why every link sending program on the planet insists on doing this. It is broken and wrong.

Re: Transitioning Google URL Shortener to Firebase Dynamic Links

#19

Post by snuxoll »

techsupporter wrote: post #18
MR4D wrote: post #13

This has been poorly handled. I got an email for my company yesterday with one of these links. Being security conscious, I hovered over the link and suspected a phishing attack. Given I work in finance, this was the only prudent move I felt I had. Google is going to see a lot of that over the coming weeks if they can’t improve their communication on this.

> Being security conscious, I hovered over the link and suspected a phishing attack. > Given I work in finance, this was the only prudent move I felt I had. At my place of employment, we are instructed to "hover to uncover" every link in an e-mail. Yet every link I get from virtually any automated source reads something like this: "To accomplish the task you need to accomplish, simply visit us at h t t p s: / / examp…

I can't even see the real link because our anti-spam software rewrites every single one (so they all look like https://somesubdomain.mimecast.com/linkcheck?something=as8fg...). Even more annoying it loads the URL before you even get to it, so single use URL's like Salesforce password resets get burned before you can use them (we finally got this fixed with our old Proofpoint setup that did the same nonsense, I haven't pestered them to fix it with Mimecast yet).

Re: Transitioning Google URL Shortener to Firebase Dynamic Links

#20

Post by jkaplowitz »

MR4D wrote: post #13

This has been poorly handled. I got an email for my company yesterday with one of these links. Being security conscious, I hovered over the link and suspected a phishing attack. Given I work in finance, this was the only prudent move I felt I had. Google is going to see a lot of that over the coming weeks if they can’t improve their communication on this.

The things they're announcing here are a turndown of support for creating new goo.gl links and a more flexible but slightly differently focused replacement, both without breaking existing links.

Your comment is a general one that, while entirely valid, applies to all URL shorteners. How is that somehow different in the case of Google's shortener or this transition?

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