Url Revealer
Url shortening services like Tinyurl have seen an influx since the release of web services like Twitter. Twitter is a prime example as the services limits the amount of characters per message to 160 much like SMS on cell phones. Yes, you can write / send multiple messages but that's not really the same, is it?
If you head over to Twitter and log into your account you most likely will see links of shortening services. While they make links shorter so that you can save chars they also hide the real address of the link which in its extreme can be used to lure users to a website they do not want to visit. This can have serious consequences depending on the location or place the links are accessed: Think of following a link leading to an adult site at work, a link that is trying to install a virus on your system, or other links that you would never visit in first place if you knew where it leads to.
Long URL Please is an experimental Firefox extension that turns urls of shortening services to their original one. It currently supports about 30 different services with more being added regularly.
The developers have created a bookmarklet as well which can be used if you work with other web browsers. Some users have claimed that the extension dropped the performance while surfing while others have not experienced it. It might depend on the speed of the computer and Internet connection.
Update: The Firefox extension is no longer experimental. We have also changed the link so that it points directly to the add-on's page on Mozilla's add-ons repository. It uses the api of the longurlplease.com which non-Firefox users can open directly to reveal the destination of short urls.
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Another good example of why “Mobile like” Interfaces don’t look or function good on Desktops. I thought everyone knew that since Win8.
Neither of these work for the majority of Twitter users, and if you’ve been reading Reddit, then you should know this by now. The opt-out url hasn’t worked in over a month, and the switch to legacy option is rarely seen by most users.
I actually thought this post has something new to offer, but it turns out it’s old Reddit workarounds that no longer work.
Try using the ‘User-Agent Switcher’ add-on (the one by Alexander Schlarb) on Firefox. It can change the user-agent specifically for a particular domain (here, of course, is Twitter). It will affect the copy and paste functions (they simply just turn to be not working after the user-agent is altered), but you can still use the ‘Copy Plain Text’ add-on to copy and paste.
P.S.: Don’t open twitter too quick after every launch of the browser, or the ugly new layout version of Twitter would still jump out, and you’ll constantly get a ‘data corruption’ error throughout the whole session if you close this tab and reopen the twitter website. So, just wait a second or two (to wait until all the add-ons are loaded) would be fine.
Logged in today and ” hey presto” there was a horrid new UI… hate it actually..Unfortunately for me I don’t have the option which says, “Switch to legacy Twitter”….Also when I try to use https://twitter.com/i/optout URL it gives me “Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!”… So it seems I’m stuck with this horrid UI….!!
Still not work for me. For me, the only way to opt out is to use a user-agent switching tool to fake a IE user-agent for it.
The best fix for this is to stop using twitter, it’s crap anyway.
so is Facebook, but heaps still use it, an so is instagram, still heaps use it.
i couldnt care a less about it TBH, i dont even have the new UI yet so i dont care.
I do not have the “Switch To Legacy Twitter”. The opt-out link just takes me to that horrid look of my twitter feed. Now what?
Do you use any extensions or scripts that change the Twitter interface? What happens when you clear the browser cache?
Hello Martin,
Thank you for your response. To clarify, my primary browser is Waterfox 56.2.11, and I do not use specialized extensions or scripts to change the Twitter interface. I logged out and logged back in several times, double-checked my Twitter settings, and there was no change in the interface.
However, I switched to Internet Explorer to view Twitter, just to see what would happen, and on my computer it looked just like the ‘legacy interface’ that everyone is so interested in reverting to. There was also a nag screen at the top about switching to Microsoft Edge, which I ignored.
So I can say, in my case, there seems to be a bug when viewing Twitter in a Firefox clone, but not in Internet Explorer. Suggestions?
Debby
As far as I can tell, both are gone. The menu option doesn’t exist, and the URL does not work.
I already tried all that, months ago. I don’t have the “Legacy” option and when I click the twitter.com/i/optout link, it just comes back to my twitter page and doesn’t do nothing.
Wait so what does it do?
5 Steps For Old Twitter
1. Click More (On the bottom left panel)
2. Setting and Privacy
3. About Twitter
4) Directory (Opens in New Tab)
5) Click on Home button
Old Twitter restored (Don’t hit refresh)
Thanks! It works!
This has failed to work on windows 10.
worked like a champ! thanx
owh wow, it works.
I was panic for a few second lol.
I am not happy with the new interface. We should do a poll! :D
Hello Kunal, I have used your 5 Steps throughout the day, but If I leave to check my notifications and try to come back too the old page, I will be taken back to the “new twitter page”. ~ I am on a Chromebook and would there be another work-around or maybe an Extension that I could place on the laptop??
~BW~
:) Thank you so much. This makes me happy!
It doesn’t work any more…. twitter new design is a shit
Yay brilliant. Thank you Kunai
OH thank you so much. I was about to delete my account, this new version is so horrible.
It worked but when I close Twitter and go back into Twitter, I have to go thru all steps each time I enter twitter….
Thank you Kunal!
This will probably not work for long, but for now it’s beautiful.
And as soon as it’s not working any longer I will quit Twitter. Actually I never should have opened an account there.
We need decentralized structures for our online communication!
P.S. Anyone on Mastodon?
Nobody’s gonna be there, while this is going on: https://postimg.cc/Hrfjcb0n
(Probably a million Twitter b0ts trying to bring it down, meh.)
These solutions have been disabled by Twitter.