You probably should not use link shorteners, here's why:
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"URL shorteners" mean things like bit.ly, goo.gl etc where you can't see what you're clicking on, the click travels via a third party service.
It doesn't mean short URLs or URLs with trackers stripped away from them. Those are fine!
@FediTips
Yes, I agree. But, YouTube's links usually contain a tracker on the end, and Google produces huge url's as a service to companies like the BBC that both benefit from but aren't necessarily in the interests of the user. -
@FediTips
Yes, I agree. But, YouTube's links usually contain a tracker on the end, and Google produces huge url's as a service to companies like the BBC that both benefit from but aren't necessarily in the interests of the user.It is 100% fine to remove those trackers
It is 100% fine to shorten links manually
I'm not posting about those
I just mean services like bit.ly where they replace the link with their own service's URLs. These "shortened" links include their own trackers and keep the existing trackers from the long URL too.
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You probably should not use link shorteners, here's why:
- All links on Mastodon count as 23 characters no matter how long they really are. There is no need to shorten links on Mastodon, it won't save you any space.
- Link shorteners endanger privacy by allowing click tracking, and by hiding what is actually being clicked.
- Shortener providers will shut down, breaking all their links. e.g. Google's shortened links will all show 404 errors from September: https://chaos.social/@root42/114929876895398208
p.s. Just to make this extra clear, by "link shortener" I mean services like bit.ly etc which replace your link with a totally different link via their service.
I do not mean manually shortening links by removing trackers. It's totally 100% fine to manually shorten links to remove trackers, people should do that, and that's not what I'm posting about.
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You probably should not use link shorteners, here's why:
- All links on Mastodon count as 23 characters no matter how long they really are. There is no need to shorten links on Mastodon, it won't save you any space.
- Link shorteners endanger privacy by allowing click tracking, and by hiding what is actually being clicked.
- Shortener providers will shut down, breaking all their links. e.g. Google's shortened links will all show 404 errors from September: https://chaos.social/@root42/114929876895398208
@FediTips Absolutely agree, there have been so many issues with link shortneres closing down and making it easy for history to be re-written, the Gardian here in the UK As a prime example - https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/02/never-use-a-url-shortening-service-even-if-you-own-it/
I've generally found only one or two cases where I genuinely need a link shortner and it's usually with the following conditions:
1) I own said link shortener and can control the data and how long it stays alive
2) I need someone else (or a group) to access a URL which would be difficult to type and where I need to provide the information on hard-copy or a presentation and can't for some easy reason send everyone the details.
3) The useful life of the link is short, generally a day or two at most, no risk of history being re-written because nobody's ever going to need to open the link again.
I've used it when running technical game-days or training sessions face to face where I can spin up a link and destroy it afterwards but that's about the only useful time...
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You probably should not use link shorteners, here's why:
- All links on Mastodon count as 23 characters no matter how long they really are. There is no need to shorten links on Mastodon, it won't save you any space.
- Link shorteners endanger privacy by allowing click tracking, and by hiding what is actually being clicked.
- Shortener providers will shut down, breaking all their links. e.g. Google's shortened links will all show 404 errors from September: https://chaos.social/@root42/114929876895398208
@FediTips thank you for the explainer. Interested in knowing how the team decided on the number 23 for all urls of any side shared on mastodon.
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You probably should not use link shorteners, here's why:
- All links on Mastodon count as 23 characters no matter how long they really are. There is no need to shorten links on Mastodon, it won't save you any space.
- Link shorteners endanger privacy by allowing click tracking, and by hiding what is actually being clicked.
- Shortener providers will shut down, breaking all their links. e.g. Google's shortened links will all show 404 errors from September: https://chaos.social/@root42/114929876895398208
@FediTips Do links with fewer than 23 chars also count as 23? #JustCurious
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@FediTips Do links with fewer than 23 chars also count as 23? #JustCurious
Yes, all links count as 23.
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p.s. Just to make this extra clear, by "link shortener" I mean services like bit.ly etc which replace your link with a totally different link via their service.
I do not mean manually shortening links by removing trackers. It's totally 100% fine to manually shorten links to remove trackers, people should do that, and that's not what I'm posting about.
@FediTips So I noticed that when I share links to mastodon from the iOS share sheet, the tracker (text after the ? If I'm understanding this correctly) indicates that it's coming from activity pub. I'd like to promote the 'Verse, so is that letting web admins know that traffic is coming from here? Any pros/cons?
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@FediTips So I noticed that when I share links to mastodon from the iOS share sheet, the tracker (text after the ? If I'm understanding this correctly) indicates that it's coming from activity pub. I'd like to promote the 'Verse, so is that letting web admins know that traffic is coming from here? Any pros/cons?
I hadn't noticed trackers like that? When I've tried sharing with iOS it just gives me a plain link?
However, "ActivityPub" is indeed the technical name for the protocol used by Mastodon and the wider Fediverse.
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@FediTips thank you for the explainer. Interested in knowing how the team decided on the number 23 for all urls of any side shared on mastodon.
It was the number of characters in Twitter's old shortener service. The idea was to match the size but avoid all the privacy and link rot problems.
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@FediTips Absolutely agree, there have been so many issues with link shortneres closing down and making it easy for history to be re-written, the Gardian here in the UK As a prime example - https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/02/never-use-a-url-shortening-service-even-if-you-own-it/
I've generally found only one or two cases where I genuinely need a link shortner and it's usually with the following conditions:
1) I own said link shortener and can control the data and how long it stays alive
2) I need someone else (or a group) to access a URL which would be difficult to type and where I need to provide the information on hard-copy or a presentation and can't for some easy reason send everyone the details.
3) The useful life of the link is short, generally a day or two at most, no risk of history being re-written because nobody's ever going to need to open the link again.
I've used it when running technical game-days or training sessions face to face where I can spin up a link and destroy it afterwards but that's about the only useful time...
Good grief... shame on the Guardian for doing that!
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I hadn't noticed trackers like that? When I've tried sharing with iOS it just gives me a plain link?
However, "ActivityPub" is indeed the technical name for the protocol used by Mastodon and the wider Fediverse.
@FediTips Not every site does it, but here's what I'm seeing. Wonder if it's flipboard adding that?
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@FediTips Not every site does it, but here's what I'm seeing. Wonder if it's flipboard adding that?
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@FediTips Not every site does it, but here's what I'm seeing. Wonder if it's flipboard adding that?
Ahhh okay, I thought you meant the other way round (from a Mastodon app to elsewhere).
Yeah, a lot of websites do have extensions that let them track where a link is. Especially commercial services.
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IF fuck=google
THEN remove everything after the ?, even if it says activitypub? -
