url shorteners: if it aint bit.ly, its malicious!
So I just found out that all url shortening services are malicious or spam… at least that is what bit.ly thinks. One of the members over at donation coder tweeted out a link that was shortened by a url shortener other than bit.ly. Someone else retweeted her tweet. This other person uses tweetdeck, which by default shortens EVERY link using bit.ly. (even already shortened ones) Now here is where the malicious part kicks in. this other person’s retweet contained a bit.ly link to an already shortened link. Now whenever anyone clicks on that bit.ly link, they are redirected to a warning page that states the link that they are going to is malicious or spam. This makes the person from donation coder look bad. I think this is very bad and stupid on bit.ly’s part. I am a user of tweetdeck also, so I have switched my tweetdeck’s settings to use is.gd instead of bit.ly. I would suggest to anyone who uses tweetdeck and likes to retweet peoples tweets to change their tweetdeck settings to use something other than bit.ly. (to do this, click the wrench at the top right of tweetdeck > click Services > under the box that says “Select the service you wish to use to shorten URLs” change it from bit.ly to one of the other choices.)
if you want to get more information, you can visit the post the DC member made either on the DC forums or at her blog.