DEV Community

Cover image for What's your favorite URL shortener?

What's your favorite URL shortener?

Madza on January 13, 2021

Very long URLs look bad, take up a lot of character space, are a nightmare to share with other people, etc. That's where URL shorteners come in. D...
Collapse
 
moopet profile image
Ben Sinclair

I don't like them, in general.

In my own software I try to avoid making long URLs in the first place.

There's no reason that something readable like https://mycoolsite.website/blog/2020/01/01/my-new-years-resolutions should be considered a "nightmare". If you're sharing a bit.ly URL with someone else, then you have to paste it to them or speak "doublyew, m for mother, no, EMMM I said, can you hear me?" the same as any random string.

And long strings with a million query parameters are usually deep links to things like search results which are inherently fragile. And speaking of fragile, you're adding an extra point of failure for no good reason.

When including the link on a page you control, you'll probably put the name of the destination page or something descriptive in as the text link, so that's not a problem.

URL shorteners cause problems. They can lead to anything, a shock site, a rick roll, malware... anything. Want to find that cool item on sale a friend pasted you on your messenger? Good luck identifying it among all the other shortened URLs they sent you unless they took the time to describe what the link is... which they wouldn't have to do if it was the original text.

No, the real "problem" URL shorteners solve is tracking people, and bypassing things like the GDPR.

Remind me why that's a good thing? Who knows what the owner of the shortener does with your collected data!

Collapse
 
sunnyb profile image
Sun-Li Beatteay

Whenever I use Bitly I always customize the slug portion at the end to be more readable and relevant. That way you get the best of both words, short and readable.

It also helps me remember what the shortened link is pointing to

Collapse
 
madza profile image
Madza • Edited

Good points there 😉💯
Also, if I use a shortened link I always feel unsafe about how long will it work, as it's been handled by a third party 😉

Collapse
 
moopet profile image
Ben Sinclair

Yeah, that's what I mean by it adding a point of failure :)

Collapse
 
stephanreynolds profile image
Stephan Reynolds ✪ • Edited

I am using drect.net for my shorting stuff. It's free and usefull. Simple, powerful & recognizable links! Brand, track, and share your short links, engage with your users on a different level.

URL shortener

Collapse
 
maulik profile image
Maulik

My friend @nyior created his own URL shortener. The best thing about it is, you just need to use the chrome plugin to shorten the URL which is very easy and handy.

Collapse
 
madza profile image
Madza

Thanks for sharing, will check it out! 😉👍

Collapse
 
nyior profile image
Nyior Clement Jr.

We are also open to feedback; please do leave a review if you find it useful, or if there is anything that you think needs to be improved.

Collapse
 
nyior profile image
Nyior Clement Jr.

Thank you Maulik!

Collapse
 
hb profile image
Henry Boisdequin

Bitly!

Collapse
 
priyanshu45 profile image
priyanshu45

bitly

Collapse
 
dansvel profile image
dan • Edited

s.id is Indonesian url shortener. Even in free account there are option for custom url and statistic

note: i dont know the about performance

Collapse
 
nikosefthias profile image
Nikos Efthias

Cutly

Collapse
 
highcenburg profile image
Vicente G. Reyes

From bitly, I switched to cutly and now I just use duckduckgo's URL shortener.

Collapse
 
xuub profile image
Batuhan Y. Yılmaz

I am using vexx.cf for my shorting stuff. It's free and usefull.

Collapse
 
max236 profile image
Mageshwaran

bitly is awesome, I did a MVP version of it by using this reference
educative.io/courses/grokking-the-...

Collapse
 
peter279k profile image
peter279k

Using bitly and tinyurl. And I also consider using the URL Shotener.