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Dare Obasanjo

Google continues its epic run of reminding people why you should never depend on their services.

They just announced that links that used goo.gl/* shortener will break after August 25th 2025.

You’d think Google of all companies would respect not breaking links.

developers.googleblog.com/en/g

8 comments
Samir Al-Battran

@carnage4life @thisismissem
I am shocked when I hear anyone using GCP these days, it's like building on a sand castle!

ErosBlog Bacchus

@carnage4life This is a subset of the general proposition: Link shorteners suck and nobody should ever use them for anything.

See, e.g., @pluralistic writing against link shorteners all the way back in 2009:

boingboing.net/2009/04/04/why-

Johnny Peligro 🍅

shit like this is why I fucking detest having an android phone now, and it feels awful because I was a happy android enthusiast some years ago.

A Tiny Dragon :nite:

@carnage4life tbh im surprised they kept the links going this long, knowing them, considering they turned off making new ones in 2018

s427

@carnage4life I was curious about those "Firebase dynamic links" they mention as the alternative to their old url shortener, and... what a trainwreck.

Шуро

URL shorteners are terrible idea in general. Something not to use in the first place.

Every URL shortener will go down sooner or later.
Every URL shortener can track you and your visitors.
Every URL shortener can fail, refuse service or get blocked by search engine, social platform or government making links inaccessible.
Every URL shortener can spoof links.
Every URL shortener hides real link from the viewer making it at best impolite to ask people to click what they can't see.

This is not a complete list even. Just. Do. Not. Use. These.

Unless in very niche circumstances like linking temporary announcement in cellular text message.

URL shorteners are terrible idea in general. Something not to use in the first place.

Every URL shortener will go down sooner or later.
Every URL shortener can track you and your visitors.
Every URL shortener can fail, refuse service or get blocked by search engine, social platform or government making links inaccessible.
Every URL shortener can spoof links.
Every URL shortener hides real link from the viewer making it at best impolite to ask people to click what they can't see.

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