Comments on: URL Fun

URL Fun

filmgeek — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 09:28:44 -0800

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)

By: Pretty_Generic

Pretty_Generic — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 09:31:23 -0800

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

By: phirleh

phirleh — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 09:34:08 -0800

http://evilurl.com/SCREWSCABurine (NSFW)

By: dougunderscorenelso

dougunderscorenelso — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 09:37:23 -0800

Oh, oh, I will be having fun with HugeURL.

By: Dipsomaniac

Dipsomaniac — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 09:47:39 -0800

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.

By: danOstuporStar

danOstuporStar — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 09:49:58 -0800

EvilURL rulez!!!

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 09:50:04 -0800

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.

By: Vulpyne

Vulpyne — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 09:53:50 -0800

HugeURL and EvilURL made this post so worth it. Nice.

By: Plutor

Plutor — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 09:57:21 -0800

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?

By: arse_hat

arse_hat — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 10:03:17 -0800

Don't MeFi when you NEED condescension. MeFi when you WANT condescension.

By: WebToy

WebToy — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 10:05:24 -0800

Did we need the four-year-old web-tool condescending intro, though? Sarcasm, no?

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 10:08:48 -0800

Please DO NOT use these services when posting to ~~licktittyASScock~~ MetaFilter.

By: furiousxgeorge

furiousxgeorge — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 10:15:46 -0800

http://evilurl.com/DONGsluttyPORNO

By: weretable and the undead chairs

weretable and the undead chairs — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 10:17:42 -0800

http://evilurl.com/analKNOBporn =)

By: fenriq

fenriq — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 10:18:16 -0800

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!

By: fenriq

fenriq — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 10:21:41 -0800

By the way, I came up with a good title for your post. URLs Gone Wild. Thank you.

By: fletchmuy

fletchmuy — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 10:55:32 -0800

I love Make A Shorter Link's tagline: ...it's not long now!

By: caution live frogs

caution live frogs — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 10:58:35 -0800

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?

By: scruss

scruss — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 11:02:25 -0800

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?

By: dmd

dmd — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 11:09:04 -0800

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...)

By: BradNelson

BradNelson — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 11:40:49 -0800

The best part is the banner ad on this site that links to this shirt. We could use those for AskMe.

By: etoile

etoile — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 12:04:36 -0800

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.)

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 15:28:51 -0800

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.

By: krinklyfig

krinklyfig — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 20:12:36 -0800

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.

By: Jimbob

Jimbob — Sat, 18 Dec 2004 03:52:02 -0800

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.....

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Sat, 18 Dec 2004 15:02:34 -0800

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.

By: chime

chime — Sun, 19 Dec 2004 14:46:33 -0800

http://xrl.us/loopforever5 That should loop forever :)

By: rafter

rafter — Sun, 19 Dec 2004 14:56:48 -0800

Redirect Loop Error Redirection limit for this URL exceeded. (I love Firefox.)