How to See Where a TinyUrl Is Really Linking To
You've already seen them… links to tinyurl.com left in comments, on blog posts and especially on Twitter. But doesn't it make you slightly uneasy to click on a link without knowing where it's going to take you?
There's a feature on the TinyURL.com site that will show you a preview of the final destination URL, and there's not even a login required… it just sets a cookie on your browser.
Once on the site, just click the link for "Click here to enable previews"
And now when you click on a TinyUrl link like this one…
You'll be taken to a page on tinyurl.com that will show you the final destination link.
If you'd like to ensure that the person you are sending links to will see the preview screen even if they haven't enabled this setting, you can add preview. before the domain name. This also works if you want to go to a TinyUrl link on a machine that doesn't already have the cookies enabled.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2tqueo
I found this very useful, so hopefully it'll also help somebody else.
Another option is this Greasemonkey script:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/12048
You don't have to visit another website, you just hover over the link, and you can see the full URL.
neon,
Very nice find… =)
That's great advice. I hardly ever click on tinyurl links because of not knowing where they go. This feature will change that.