Git.io no longer accepts new URLs | Hacker News Reader

Git.io no longer accepts new URLs

github.blog

70 points_6mdd56 comments

Git.io (the "GitHub URL Shortener") was only ever for GitHub-hosted projects to use, which had the effect of further conflating GitHub and Git to an even worse degree. It always struck me as borderline scummy, since GitHub was of course aware of this, but then again they've knowingly benefited from misconceptions about the Git/GitHub relationship for a long time, so it's not out of line with the established MO.

Very reminiscent of Google's `web.dev` site, which I find almost disgusting.

But interestingly Google's really dominant in the Web, including W3C, WICG, Chromium etc. They are just able to somehow control the "Web".

Several companies have their own URL shorteners (Amazon, Youtube...); this is nothing new or wrong.

It's actually reassuring to know that one can it in the code (comments) knowing that the service provider doesn't do anything dodgy and that the links are reasonably long-lived (as a matter of fact, Github is not discontinuing already existing URLs).

If GitHub had wanted a GitHub specific URL shortener and did not want to further perpetuate confusion about the relationship between git and GitHub, they could have gone with gh.io, ghub.io, hub.io, or any other domain name that isn't 'git.io'. 'git.io' sounds like it would probably be an official domain of 'git'. But, 'git.io' is (was) actually a URL shortener for a specific hosted service whose only relationship to 'git' is that GitHub uses the 'git' software for version control. GitHub is not maintained by the git team nor is it a project of the git team. Git can be (and is widely) used outside of GitHub.

GP is not complaining about a GitHub specific url shortener.

That's not what the other comment was complaining about. If it were GitHub.io that would be fine.

They are saying that GitHub has had a long interest in people thinking that Git is something you only do with GitHub, reducing people from thinking about using Git without GitHub. Of course, to be clear, Git is a 100% independent project that existed before GitHub and GitHub has ZERO claim to anything about Git, it just uses it.

How you walked away with the understanding you apparently did based on what I wrote is a mystery.

Git ≠ GitHub; claiming the git.io domain and then using it exclusively for GitHub URLs is distasteful.

They're not discontinuing them for now. You already can't create new URLs, but they will be deprecating the service "in the future". What does that entail?

I hate when "deprecate" is used to mean "remove" (if that's what's happening here).

"deprecate" and "remove" are not synonymous and I don't see any indication they are being conflated here. Deprecation often precedes removal but that's the extent of it.

Deprecation generally means continued use of tool/API/etc. is actively discouraged. Users of a deprecated tool/API/etc. should find a suitable alternative for all their remaining use cases. In this case, once this shortener is officially deprecated, anyone using a git.io URL for any purpose should replace it with an alternative.

Deprecation is usually a precursor to removal. Once the tool/API/etc. has been deprecated long enough (relatively speaking), it's generally consider as safe as practical to remove the tool/API/etc. from service. That lead time can range anywhere from months to years.

Yes that's the way I use the word as well, it is a pet peeve of mine when that is not the case.

> "deprecate" and "remove" are not synonymous and I don't see any indication they are being conflated here. Deprecation often precedes removal but that's the extent of it.

The reason I'm equating "deprecate" and "remove" in this case is because they have already said there will be no more git.io links created -- so how can you "deprecate" it further? I suppose they could say "Hey, this is deprecated now and we're going to shut it down in six months", and in this case, the user behavior that is discouraged is "relying on the links".

For anyone curious, I found this early blog post announcing it.

https://github.blog/2011-11-10-git-io-github-url-shortener/

It seems like it was built by some Github employees back during the URL shortening phase as just a fun hack project to learn a new database, although a few services implemented it to shorten Github URLs.

No, no, no. Didn't you read the rest of this thread! This was all part of a well coordinated, thought out, grand conspiracy to place github.com as the de-facto git repository. Not some late night, quick turnaround, "hey, this would be cool" project created by two people for lulz. After all, it would be impossible to create an effective URL shortener with one developer and a late night with a case of beer (no...don't look at me, it took me a day and a half).

Get with the narrative!

Who is making the kind of claims that you claim they're making?

I would say your comment (which is currently the top comment on this post) thread is not far off from what cwbrandsma is somewhat hyperbolically saying.

> It always struck me as borderline scummy, since GitHub was of course aware of this, but then again they've knowingly benefited from misconceptions about the Git/GitHub relationship for a long time

To me that very much implies the thought out plan to place github as the defacto git repo that cwbrandsma was describing.

It's not that there was some evil master plan from the beginning, it's that GitHub benefits from git/GitHub confusion (such as hosting git.io), knows this (at least nowadays), and passively encourages this by doing nothing about it.

> not far off from what cwbrandsma is somewhat hyperbolically saying

Calling that comment "somewhat hyperbolic" is an understatement.

I wish there was more background on what/why git.io was a thing, as well as why it's now being discontinued in this announcement. First time hearing of this service.

I think this is the original 2011 announcement:

https://github.blog/2011-11-10-git-io-github-url-shortener/

It turned into a bit of a malware redirect cesspool, and I guess they didn't want to police it.

I ran across the issue about two weeks before this blog post:

https://twitter.com/ryancdotorg/status/1475673195654959108

https://twitter.com/ryancdotorg/status/1475859899099746308

Basically, bad actors were setting up open javascript redirects on github pages, then using git.io to redirect to arbitrary target URLs.

Do people still use URL shorteners…? I would guess the usage has declined in the past 10 years or so.

Most relevant sites provide their own short urls now. All 3rd party shorteners are monetized by tracking and selling the data, so I wouldn’t be surprised nobody uses them.

It's good for comments in code, and back in the old days of twitter before they added in native support for url's in tweets

I think it's bad for comments in code. If you have the full URL you could at least try to find an archived version for it on archive.org if the link shortener went away.

The archive.org link should be used in code comments imho. This ensures that the content in question has been archived, and points to the temporal snapshot.

Even that isn't a guarantee though, as the owner of a URL can request it to be taken down/unindexed.

Couldn't archive.org go away some day though? It could disappear before the original site. This seems unlikely but it's possible.

I'd rather link to the original but save it on archive.org as a backup. Of course whoever uses the broken link would have to know to go look it up on archive.org.

I guess it's a question of minimizing risks and it seems likely that

risk of shorturl site going away > risk of website going away > risk of archive.org going away

Well that's always a possibility. The archive.org URL usually contains the full original URL so there's no downside of using it.

In this case though, it's still just code documentation so ideally it should be somewhat possible to figure out what's going on without a link to an external site. It's just about minimizing the risk.

They are useful for transactional SMS messages when you want to remind someone of an appointment or an event. There is a character limit in SMS if you want to keep it to one message and not annoy your customers.

They’re also a great tool for that as transactional sms messages don’t really have permanence, so the urls disappearing in the future is a non issue.

NSW Police need to keep making Facebook posts stating "our last SMS was not a scam" because people keep questioning them. Maybe not use bit.ly links in broadcast messages.

https://www.facebook.com/nswpoliceforce

I built a url shortened in 2016 and still maintain it now:

0x.co

… gets light usage …

Twitter's link shortener gets tonnes of use. Seems like every external link in every tweet is converted to a t.co link instead to save characters.

I’m sure that the real reason for Twitter to use t.co is analytics and more control over the platform.

That’s just Twitter’s redirection proxy. It’s not people using it as a URL shortener. It is Twitter automatically linking all URLs in tweets to go via t.co for tracking.

No doubt that it's used for tracking but "clicks" on the URL could probably be measured in other on-page ways too. One additional reason is probably that if there's a spam URL detected they can just block the short URL and the problem goes away instantly.

Wow, git.io was the first product I found a vulnerability and sent a responsible disclosure, more than 10 years ago.

They used to have a nice thank you page, but they got rid of it when they rolled out their bug bounty program.

I wonder if this means git.io short links will be going away, I still use mine on my CV and elsewhere.

> I wonder if this means git.io short links will be going away

From the announcement:

> Existing URLs will continue to be accessible

Yeah but for how long?

That's like Google saying "G Suite Legacy will continue to be free..."

Also from the announcement :

“.. but we encourage using one of the many URL shortening services that are available, instead of git.io, as we will be deprecating the tool in the future.”

I guess that's another Url shortener for Archive Team [1] to backup

[1]:https://wiki.archiveteam.org/

This is a sad day for me. The obscurity of git.io, along with its nested obscurity of the ability to create vanity links, let me grab https://git.io/8. It looks like that'll go away one day, I wonder what will become of the domain itself; it's certainly a six figure property.

I remember there being a form to create a URL (which would get you a random git.io/xxx) but picking your short URL had to go through an API. At least that's how I created mine.

Am I the only one who has never heard of nor seen a git.io shortened URL?

This post was my first introduction to it too. Searching for "git.io" on github.com, including the quotes, returns a number of repositories using git.io links -- "2M+" if their search is to be believed.

I'd never heard of it either, and I'm a very active github user. There's just so much "stuff" out there now, there's no way to keep track of it all.

I do wish any time there was a service deprecation notice, the service providers would give some detail as to why it's going offline. Lack of use, difficulty to maintain, expense, etc. With that said, I don't think we're owed any explanation, especially for free-to-use services.

Specific to this service, I never personally used it, but I wonder how many project links will break when the service does finally go offline.

Sounds like that would be an excellent resource for me to learn about services that - now that they're being retired - I could wish I knew about a few years earlier...

If anyone is looking for an alternative URL Shortener you should checkout T.LY

https://t.ly/

Note: the .ly top-level domain is Libya. Perhaps not the best place to use as a single point of control for your addresses.

Aren't there downsides to using a Libyan TLD?

Does anyone know where one may find more info about what git.io used to be and why it might have been deprecated?

https://github.blog/2011-11-10-git-io-github-url-shortener/

It was a URL-shortening service for GitHub URLs. Nothing more, nothing less. You would put in a URL, and get a new, short URL git.io/... that would redirect to what you put in.

IMO, they've found a better use of the domain. Maybe something à la web.dev?

I have used this to refer some github links/code/lines in my code/commit, too bad it was fun while it was lasted

Reply on news.ycombinator.com