URL Fun

December 17, 2004 9:28 AM

URL Fun
Ever need to make a really long or convoluted URL shorter? Or need to hide some bit of web naming from someone? You'll want to use something like TinyURL, BabyURL , URL123, and Make A Shorter Link.

All that shortening can't be good. Fun ways to play with your enemies! HugeURL and my favorite - EvilURL (Evil - NSFW)
posted by filmgeek (27 comments total)

I love the fact that makeashorterlink.com has such a long domain name.

EvilURL is genius.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 9:31 AM on December 17, 2004

http://evilurl.com/SCREWSCABurine (NSFW)
posted by phirleh at 9:34 AM on December 17, 2004

Oh, oh, I will be having fun with HugeURL.
posted by dougunderscorenelso at 9:37 AM on December 17, 2004

Use javascript:void(location.href='http://tinyurl.com/create.php?url='+location.href)
as a bookmark and you can TinyUrl with one click. Just go to that bookmark from the site you need to make Tiny.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 9:47 AM on December 17, 2004

EvilURL rulez!!!
posted by danOstuporStar at 9:49 AM on December 17, 2004

Please DO NOT use these services when posting to MetaFilter.

(A) The links will not continue to work indefinitely, which buggers the archives;

(B) People at work need to be able to determine where the link will go before clicking.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:50 AM on December 17, 2004

HugeURL and EvilURL made this post so worth it. Nice.
posted by Vulpyne at 9:53 AM on December 17, 2004

I can just see it, tomorrow's MeFi headline: Searching fun. Ever need to find some information on the internets? Or bored at work and just looking for something to read? You'll want to use something like Google, Yahoo!, Lycos, and Alltheweb.

Okay, okay, hugeurl and evilurl are pretty cool. Did we need the four-year-old web-tool condescending intro, though?
posted by Plutor at 9:57 AM on December 17, 2004

Don't MeFi when you NEED condescension.
MeFi when you WANT condescension.
posted by arse_hat at 10:03 AM on December 17, 2004

Did we need the four-year-old web-tool condescending intro, though?

Sarcasm, no?
posted by WebToy at 10:05 AM on December 17, 2004

Please DO NOT use these services when posting to licktittyASScock MetaFilter.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:08 AM on December 17, 2004

http://evilurl.com/DONGsluttyPORNO
posted by furiousxgeorge at 10:15 AM on December 17, 2004

http://evilurl.com/analKNOBporn

=)
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 10:17 AM on December 17, 2004

Evil URL is good fun, I think I'm going to make a forwarding URL for some of my least favorite sites.

George W. Bush.com is now http://evilurl.com/burnTURDBURN.

And yes, that was on the first try! EvilURL RULES!
posted by fenriq at 10:18 AM on December 17, 2004

By the way, I came up with a good title for your post.

URLs Gone Wild.

Thank you.
posted by fenriq at 10:21 AM on December 17, 2004

I love Make A Shorter Link's tagline: ...it's not long now!
posted by fletchmuy at 10:55 AM on December 17, 2004

i'm quite happy with this one.


http://tinyurl.com/5gsxd

which of course is tinyurl redirecting to hugeurl which redirects to evilurl which eventually sends you to metafilter.

quick quick - which one do you think will break down and stop forwarding the link first?
posted by caution live frogs at 10:58 AM on December 17, 2004

For the shortness, I prefer xrl.us.

Does the HugeURL guy really maintain an internal database of links, or does he do the sensible thing and encode the destination URL in the huge URL?
posted by scruss at 11:02 AM on December 17, 2004

My own homebrewed one: http://3e.org/go (though if people besides me start using it, the output will end up being more than two characters long after the 'g2' prefix...)
posted by dmd at 11:09 AM on December 17, 2004

The best part is the banner ad on this site that links to this shirt. We could use those for AskMe.
posted by BradNelson at 11:40 AM on December 17, 2004

See also shorl, which uses a rather nifty system called koremutake that creates pronounceable URLs that aren't actually words.

I also like snipURL, which lets you pick your own nickname, provided it's not already taken, in addition to giving gibberish characters.

(Yes, I realize I am being overly helpful in this fun thread. Sorry.)
posted by etoile at 12:04 PM on December 17, 2004

I find these services so strange. Isn't this the entire idea behind hyperlinks? i.e., no matter how long the URL is, hypertext with hyperlinks provides you the ability (or should) of communicating that URL without actually displaying it.

I think a nice mozilla plugin would be one that expands tinyurls into their real equivalents on hover, and displays that value in the statusbar instead of the useless tinyurl.
posted by odinsdream at 3:28 PM on December 17, 2004

I find these services so strange. Isn't this the entire idea behind hyperlinks? i.e., no matter how long the URL is, hypertext with hyperlinks provides you the ability (or should) of communicating that URL without actually displaying it.

It's because long links are often broken in (lame) email clients with word-wrapping, and because some links are so long now as to be rather unwieldy when copying and pasting within plain text paragraphs, or on newfangled tiny devices that can browse the web, especially links to articles on newspaper sites. BTW, I avoid HTML email and don't send it. I'd rather use the whole link for reference purposes, and my email client doesn't break long links, so I don't use the short URL services, but I like the idea of HugeURL, and burnTURDBURN cracks me up.
posted by krinklyfig at 8:12 PM on December 17, 2004

Is there anyway to get these things stuck in an endless loop? Ie. a TinyURL that redirects to a HugeURL that redirects to a TinyURL that redirects to a HugeURL that redirects to a TinyURL that redirects to a HugeURL that redirects to a TinyURL.....
posted by Jimbob at 3:52 AM on December 18, 2004

Jimbob, only if you were able to predict the URL that one service would give you. So, you visit longurl and enter a tinyurl that you -know- will evaluate to the longurl you're about to create.

Either that, or one service allows you to reassign a URL after you get it once. As mentioned earlier, HugeURL may be encoding the target in all that garble, rather than storing it in a key-hash database. If that's the case, just figure out how HugeURL converts URL's to the convoluted string.

Then, before making the HugeURL, visit TinyURL and feed it the HugeURL you know you're about to make. Then revisit HugeURL and give it the TinyURL you actually obtained.
posted by odinsdream at 3:02 PM on December 18, 2004

http://xrl.us/loopforever5

That should loop forever :)
posted by chime at 2:46 PM on December 19, 2004

Redirect Loop Error

Redirection limit for this URL exceeded.

(I love Firefox.)
posted by rafter at 2:56 PM on December 19, 2004