Shortened Links

This is definitely an article that I needed to read, so I'm glad that I took the plunge to click on it. It's about those handy little links that are abbreviated. Twitter uses it a lot, which is understandable since there's a limit of 140 characters per tweet. I never thought about the potential security risk these links could cause, though. You never know where the links could take you, as the usual obvious details are hidden, and they could be Trojan links. There is this really cool extension, though, called "Unshorten.it" for Chrome and Firefox. It allows you to right click on one of those shortened links, and you can "Unshorten this link...", which will take you to a new page where it can tell you all of the information about that link. It's a super handy extension, and there's a link to installing it within the article below. I highly recommend everyone at least consider using it for daily use.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2013522/peek-behind-abbreviated-web-links-with-unshorten-it.html