I see more and more often that people post bit.ly links here. Please don't. First and foremost — it hides the real URL, so I don't know where I am sent to. Second: you force me to use a service that collects, aggregates and shares data on who clicks what when, which I consider very bad practice. Finally, no matter how long your URL is, it only counts as 23 characters in your post, so no need to "shorten" links [1]
TL;DR post real links and don't spy on me. #kthxbai
Links also always count as 23 characters regardless of actual length. So the only reason to use a URL shortener like bit.ly is tracking.
@jwildeboer I still need to get the motivation to make shd.li a public service .oO( obviously, this should be read as "sh-dee-li, i.e., shadily, and nothing... else... which might sound similar...)
Core idea:
- no direct-redirect, i.e., see URL first, click to actually visit
- No tracking/external cloud resources
- Bring your own domain
- Full data export for selfhosting (of your own domain)
Example: https://shd.li/c8E5roP58
Oh, and... btw; The software:
https://git.as59645.net/AS59645/shrtnr
@jwildeboer Which, of course, does not invalidate your point of 'well, people don't _need_ a shortener on here'; Which is true... but people ...
The (somewhat crappy) tool for that btw comes from the realization that all available stacks for self-hosted shortening are API-driven data-tracking behemoth... because that's what you want when running shortner. -.-'
@matty @jwildeboer Hm... yeah. Grabbing the preview and delivering it when the url is pasted might be a thing. Adding additional input for users would be a bit bloaty i think. 🤔
And in general... need the bump in motivation to put it live/open registration.
@sspopovich @matty @jwildeboer Yeah. Well, then again, it is not that hard to make people click on things anyway. Still; A weblink should not outforward outside of a trust boundary. Steam got that memo as well, and so should funny link shortener.
But i guess some form of monetization breaks if you do not autoforward. -.-'
Just to complete your post: you may want also to clean an url before posting it. There are many url cleaner applications available, please avoid posting any url that may track people.
@jwildeboer I use this regularly
As someone who uses a URL shortner it’s because on my set up (probably something to do with using Tootle and my instance) URLs do count for their exact character count, not 23.
I only use them when it’s impossible to make my point without using them.
If you don’t like clicking on them, then no one is making you.
@jwildeboer not to mention that you don't need link shorteners because long links aren't counted after 23 characters
So, they will never take up more posting space than 23 characters :P
Undertrader
Jan Wildeboer 😷
Morten Juhl-Johansen
Fynn Ellie Be
mirabilos
Tobias Fiebig
Matthew 
Steve Popovich
Doug Webb
Julian
Clemens
bumblefudge
glipari
Light🐧⁂
blhue (has moved)
Tom Sheppard
Alan Langford 🇨🇦🧤🧊摏
David - Forking Mad
Juggling With Eggs
JeanEvergreen
Martin
alex
Sekoia
khaleer_art
Jeffrey D. Stark
The Cadence Collective
Alexia 
