bit.ly

"free taco" promotion this week at the Bell: http://bit.ly/tbfreetaco

...yields a giant ERROR screen saying "site may harm computer". which i see from time to time, but this one here reads specifically "windows has determined that bit.ly may harm your computer...."

google reveals that bit.ly is just an URL shortener (i'm used to TinyURL). nonetheless, why is it flagging like this?

fwiw, the expanded link is: http://coupons2.smartsource.com/smartsource/index.jsp?Link=G7KKOAEU47FWU

 

PS: the error msg actly SAYS why it's "getting flagged like this", but i don't quite understand it. could someone pls explain it better?

oh, and...got pinched by the 10 min rule again just trying to add this note!

 

well then how do i GET to the target?

even if i wanted to hand cut/paste it, the link only appears as "bit.ly/..." (uncluding under rt click>properties). the "coupons2..." content is nowhere to be found a click-priori....

 

Here I thought that Taco Bell was being indicted for not serving 'meat' at the FDA's paltry requirement of %40! What a piece of .....!!

I hope this thread doesn't get deleted too as I won't repost this again!

http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/Taco-Bell-beef-meat-lawsuit-capress-1507053476.html

 

david -- i don't quite understand your second post. i understand the concept of a link taking you somewhere nasty, as well as the concept of cut/pasting what a link appears to be rather than actively clicking on it, but in this case, bit.ly doesn't offer up any clue as to the translated link until said clicking.

are you saying I should never click on any link, anywhere, using a shortener?

near as i can tell from the error msg, the point was that bit.ly, specifically, allows users to change the link targets after having created them. the implication being that bit.ly would reject the creation had you attempted to link to "nastyviruspage" in the first place, but won't catch it if you made the link using "safetechsite" and then changed it to "nastyviruspage" after the fact.

right?

the further implication being that tinyurl and other such sites don't allow such link re-association, i guess.

-----
augie -- look at the bright side. by posting that story twice, we're now up to 80%!! :-D

 

oic, i missed the fact that the warning page made explicit what the target URL is!

and yeah, such a notice must be generated by bit.ly, i guess. which leaves me wondering whether this "disclaimer" pops up on ALL their links? or does smartsource have the bad reputation here?


> freetaco may link you to anything

MUST...RESIST....
MUST...RESIST....

:major

 

um...that's the exact same kind of newsblurb in which i read it myself, plodr, but for the fact that yours is using some weird "on.fb" shortener and mine uses "bit.ly"....

in fact, if u look in the "comments" section there, ul find 4 people reposting it w bit.ly itself-- including the author -- and one w tinyurl!

whatever point u were making seems to have been totally undone by your example.

rolleyes

 

http://longurl.org/

 

now THAT is an answer! kudos to plastidust -- that is going STRAIGHT into my favorites list.

but can't i get it to AUTOMATICALLY intercept all such links from now on? they mention 2 diff ways for FireFox, but no peep on IE:

http://longurl.org/tools

btw, what makes bit.ly so great? in the 24 hrs since i first saw said doman, i've noticed it to be outpacing tinyurl about 40 to 1! including on longurl itself (twitter cite atop last link).

here's a great list for the curious, btw:

http://longurl.org/services

pls memorize before tomorrow's class!

 

From: http://www.longurlplease.com/

I don't use IE so don't know how well this one works.

As for the longurl.org one, I have that in the search bar(for testing). Then the http://bit.ly_url or https://bit.ly_url can just be copied and pasted into the search bar.

 

i'm not seeing the difference. "on facebook" serves to mask the real URL with one much shorter. perhaps it is an official "facebook-run/-sanctioned" shortener, but it's still a shortener, no?

despite your comment that you google up a direct link, you are actually accepting the indirect one the news blurb gave you, same as me.

no?