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Claudio González
Legend
February 4, 2009
Question

Short and long links

  • February 4, 2009
  • 35 replies
  • 3717 views
This post of mine

Claudio González, "Report spam or inappropriate posts here" #16, 3 Feb 2009 2:54 am

started an interesting discussion on the pros and cons of posting shortened links. In an attempt of trying to keep the Spam forum for what it is, I am suggestiong that any furhter discussion be moved here.

Thank you.
    This topic has been closed for replies.

    35 replies

    Kath-H
    Inspiring
    February 6, 2009
    >I don't see the tooltips type information

    Unless the poster has coded it in, of course, but very few do.
    Kath-H
    Inspiring
    February 6, 2009
    In Safari and Firefox I see the full url in the status bar - unless I've made that bar invisible in Safari because I want that extra bit of the page showing.

    I don't see the tooltips type information (appearing by the cursor) in my current version of either Firefox or Safari. Maybe it shows up in Explorer, I wouldn't know.

    Also, it's possible to spoof that information to deceive people. I think we're maybe worrying Claudio too much though ;)

    I still think it's a 'horses for courses' issue or non-issue. Some like one, some like the other, some are scared/wary of anything but a full url, some just prefer them (newsreader users???), some are using, say, an earlier version of Firefox that doesn't wrap long urls.

    I never follow a link without some information as to what it is, whether in the text of the post or in the 'short descriptive text' part or sometimes it's fairly clear from the long url. That's not because I'm worried about the dangers of where I'm going, just I don't want to waste time on something I don't care to read. Some posters get their links automatically ignored by me.
    Ramón G Castañeda
    Inspiring
    February 6, 2009
    >When you hold your mouse over the "Short, descriptive text" of an actual coded link, the long URL will display so you know where it is going to take you

    It certainly does in Firefox. What sort of browser doesn't?
    Participating Frequently
    February 6, 2009
    I'll try again, Howard3. I was making a statement.

    I appreciate that you were trying to find something, anything, but there's nothing to go after. You are related to Ann, aren't you?
    Kath-H
    Inspiring
    February 6, 2009
    I'll try again. Harvey, Claudio wanted to know if he could personally run any risks if he, himself, Claudio, posted a shortened link. I was reassuring him on that.
    Participating Frequently
    February 6, 2009
    It's your time.
    Known Participant
    February 6, 2009
    Re: short links
    >They are easy to abuse and difficult to police. I think they should be banned.

    My 2¢: If someone wants to spoof an address, he/she will figure out to do it, whether via tinyurl.com (which provides the option of showing a preview), or creating a plain language description as a link or even an alleged adobeforums.com/webx URL.

    So if you are really afraid to click on links, don't click on any of them. But know that if the link goes somewhere inappropriate, there is a pretty good chance that bit of information will be posted here. And if it's on this side of the Forums fence, one of the hosts will probably take care of it.

    Neil
    Known Participant
    February 6, 2009
    Re: short links
    >They are easy to abuse and difficult to police. I think they should be banned.

    My 2¢: If someone wants to spoof an address, he/she will do it, whether via tinyurl.com (which provides the option of showing a preview), or creating a plain language description as a link or even an alleged adobeforums.com/webx URL.

    So if you are really afraid to click on links, don't click on any of them. But know that if the link goes somewhere inappropriate, there is a pretty good chance that bit of information will be posted here. And if it's on this side of the Forums fence, one of the hosts will probably take care of it.

    Neil
    Participating Frequently
    February 6, 2009
    Perhaps the forum software should add a tooltip with the real URL. Except that can be overridden, too. Sigh. Okay...

    Practice safe browsing.
    February 6, 2009
    >When you hold your mouse over the "Short, descriptive text" of an actual coded link, the long URL will display so you know where it is going to take you... that does not, of course tell you what will be there when you click, but you can read the actual address

    you can't ALWAYS trust that john. i believe after the fiasco with the spam last year, they've banned in-line scripting here in the forum, but out on the wild wild web anywhere else (and even in your inbox, in emails you get if you allow html!), it's simple to change the status bar using the onmouseover and onmouseout events to mask the actual destination of a shortened text link.

    > onMouseover="window.status='status bar text goes here';"

    will work almost everywhere where inline scripting is available.

    so don't trust blindly...