Article updated on January 6, 2025 by Byothe
While surfing the web, browsing social media, or receiving emails, you may come across shortened URLs. Basically, shortened URLs are very short, meaningless web addresses that redirect you to a longer web address.
The interest in this type of service is particularly found in places where you are limited in terms of space or number of characters (a message on Twitter for example) or when you want to hide the explicit address behind your link if you want to make a joke or a surprise.
There are many online services that allow you to create a short URL, such as Bitly or Tiny URL.
The only problem is that when you click on this type of link, you are not safe from coming across a bad surprise since you don't know where it will lead you: virus, porn site...
Rest assured, when you are not sure about a link found by chance on the web, there is a tool that will allow you to check the site hidden behind a shortened URL. It is unFurlr.
For example, let's take this URL that I shortened: bit.byothe.fr/1d3zEHw. There is nothing that allows you to know a priori if I am not playing a bad joke on you...
So, by going to unFurlr, you will be able to have details on what is hidden behind this link.
And the result is as follows:
The link leads to an article from Byothe.fr whose URL is relatively explicit.
Beyond that, unFurlr provides a lot of fairly detailed information about the link in question, an analysis of the reputation of the website mentioned as well as the links present on the web page in question.
The only downside to the reliability analysis is that little-known sites like Byothe.fr will not have a very high reputation index due to their small size...
The main thing, in any case, is to have visibility on the final URL to avoid unpleasant surprises!
