A note on Tinyurl and security

It seems some websites produce horrifically long url’s and others (such as twitter) imposes some strict boundaries, which has created the need for sites such as tinyurl.com. With tinyurl you can post a long (even really long) url on the site and have a short (redirect through tinyurl) instead. It’s pretty smart, but I really don’t like being redirected to a secret destination.

On tinyurl.com they luckily have an option (if you have cookies enabled) which allows you not to auto-redirect. Instead you reach a page on tinyurl.com, are shown the destination and must click proceed to go on to the destination.

While I’m not using internet explorer, and shouldn’t be receptive with too many browser bugs, trojans and other malware, it’s quite nice to be able to check the destination when being redirected through a popular redirection site.