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Comment by CyberRabbi | Hacker News Reader

These days I never click shortened links without first verifying where it will take me. There is so much malware out there and browsers are nightmarishly insecure that a single link click could result in a getting completely pwned.

Pro-tip: append the “+” character to any bitly link to show the target link without first visiting it.

Pro-tip2: consider browsing with JavaScript disabled by default. Enable it on a per-domain basis.

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I still wouldn't trust the plus character to not fail or whatever one day. I manually expand each short URL I get using various webservices. I'm sure there's an extension for that. I would still just walk to the expander website and paste it in though.

You're right. Short URLs are Shite urls.

Another more technical option is to make the request using curl and printing out the “location” header. Can browser extensions make non-redirecting requests and inspect the return headers?

There are some browser extensions that do similar things, I'd be interested if there is one that is particularly effective and security focused.

As the article notes, we don't want to socialize people to click on just any link.

I never click on links unless I know where it is going to lead me. Shortened links are one example. Even with an accompanying description, it raises red flags. Links to reputable image or video sharing sites without an accompanying description, is another example since you never know what is going to be on the other end.

Additionally you can add [1]"Actually Legitimate URL Shortener Tool" filter list on uBlock Origin, which is recommended by [2]gorhill

[1] https://github.com/DandelionSprout/adfilt/discussions/163

[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/m5iecq/how_do...

Description: In a world dominated by bit.ly, ad.fly, and several thousand other malware cover-up tools, this list reduces the length of URLs in a much more legitimate and transparent manner. Essentially, it automatically removes unnecessary $/& values from the URLs, making them easier to copy from the URL bar and pasting elsewhere as links. Enjoy.

I didn't know about the bitly + trick, thanks.

Works on TinyURL and others too.

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