Disclaimer – I’m stealing this posting (well, the subject matter anyway) from my husband’s blog.
One of the things that has popped up since social media requires you to shorten your postings (especially on Twitter) are these awesome tools called link shorteners. They are great because the take looooong URLs and make them teeny-tiny. This is useful for sending things on email so the link doesn’t get broken like it sometimes does, AND of course, for social media.
The thing that make them so great, is also the thing that makes them scary. You can’t tell where the link ACTUALLY goes without clicking on it. So now these have become a great tool for spammers to disguise links.
You click, thinking you are going to get a free gift or check out a funny picture, and WHAMMO – virus.
That. Totally. Sucks.
Solution – http://urlxray.com/
Want to check that link out before you click? Just enter the short url into the handy-dandy white box, and VIOLA. Now you know.
Now…isn’t that just sweet?