Reveal Destination of Tiny Url Links

Tiny Url links are a great way to shorten long urls and hide the destination of the link at the same time. I read several PC magazines that use Tiny Url to print urls in their magazine. There is however a certain danger involved because the user does not see where a link is really leading to. It could very well be that someone is posting tiny url links on trusted websites to fool users into visiting those websites.

Tiny Url are offering a preview function on their website which can be enabled. If you do enable it a cookie will be set and you will be redirected to a preview page displaying the real destination of the link that you clicked on. This is working for as long as the cookie is set.

There is however a better solution if you are using Firefox. The Greasemonkey script TinyURL Decoder decodes urls that have been shortened with the Tinyurl service right away on the page. No clicking, no hovering with the mouse over the link, it is decoded and instantly available.

Even better, TinyUrl Decoder is not only compatible with the service of the same name, but with dozens of other url shortening services. At the time of writing, a total of 68 minus a few not working ones are supported by the Greasemonkey script.

The script works only under the Firefox web browser, and not under Google Chrome. Here is what you need to do to install the script for Firefox.

Start by installing the Greasemonkey add-on or the Scriptish alternative.

Once done visit the website of the userscript and click the install button there. You will see a popup message which you need to accept. This message details the access rights that you are giving the script. Once installed, it will work out of the box. It is best tested on the userscript page. Make sure you reload the page once to see the script in action.

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Author: Martin Brinkmann, Sunday December 30, 2007 -
Tags:Firefox, greasemonkey, greasmonkey scripts, tinyurl

Responses so far:

1. Jerusalem Joe says:

   December 30, 2007 at 11:12 pm

   Thanks. it really freaks me out when I can’t see where the URL is pointing to.

   Reply
2. Lee says:

   December 31, 2007 at 12:20 am

   Good tool. I’ve also been using Cooliris Previews (http://www.cooliris.com) for a while now so I can see the page the link leads to.

   Reply
3. Lincoln says:

   December 31, 2007 at 10:00 am

   Thanks for this Martin. Very helpful.

   Reply
   • Marilu says:

     January 10, 2012 at 4:04 am

     Thanks for cnotrbuitnig. It’s helped me understand the issues.

     Reply