One of the most requested features for the TinyUrl Creator extension is to support other URL shrinking services like bit.ly and is.gd. After some dedicated research and development I have been able to add the following seven URL shrinking services to the latest version of TinyUrl (v2.0):
To change the service you’re using click Tools > Options and select the service from the dropdown list.
If you prefer another URL shrinking service and would like it to be added to this extension, leave a comment here to let me konw. Be sure to check if the service has an API, because if they don’t the extension will have to resort to screen scraping; which is pretty ugly.
Thanks for all your support.
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17 Responses
Eric Says:
July 22nd, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Jeremy,
TinyURL no longer works for me. As of 1.0.5 it doesn’t work. When I use it to make a link it puts some weird characters in the link. For example:
This link:
http://www.speakerrepair.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=BS8&Category_Code=black_chrome
Gets turned into this:
http://www.speakerrepair.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc%3FScreen%3DPROD%26Product_Code%3DBS8%26Category_Code%3Dblack_chrome
All versions prior to 1.0.5 worked fine. I am also using Firefox 2.0.0.16.
Hope you can fix it, because I rely on this add-on every day.
Frank Says:
July 26th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Jeremy, thanks for all of your extensions. It’s greatly appreciated. However, TinyURL 1.5 & 2.0 do not work with urls that have a ? (maybe other special characters too) in them. Just thought you’d like to know.
markus Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
hi jeremy!
i have the same problem as the above commenters. tried v. 1.0.5 as well as 2.0 with firefox 2.0.0.16.
apart from this little bug, i think this is one of the most useful firefox add-ons out there.
Richard Says:
August 2nd, 2008 at 4:43 am
A great extension. I am running FF v3.0.1 on a Kubuntu Hardy Heron linux machine. I have noticed that TinyUrl is mis-mapping many links. Twice I tried to map http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NjM3MQ and I get http://tinyurl.com/63zuje which take me to http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=home
I notice that the correct link flashes for an instant before reverting to the incorrect one.
Since this is a free piece of software, I am in no position to complain. So I wont. Just wanted to let your know.
Richard Says:
August 2nd, 2008 at 6:01 am
Was using 1.0.5 version from Firefox extensions page when I wrote of previous problem. Installed from this site new version 2.0. When I used tiny.url shrinking service I got same problem.
But when I switched to bit.ly service, problem disappeared.
Thanks for all hard work.
Joe Says:
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:22 am
Version 2.0 isn’t working for many web sites.
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August 6th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
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Dominic Shields Says:
August 10th, 2008 at 8:37 am
TinyURL Creator is a fantastic idea but as others have said Version 1.0.4 was the last version that worked reliably for me. Here’s hoping its a simple thing to fix.
Reginald Blue Says:
August 12th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Ditto on the problems with certain characters in the URL. However, as a work around, if you install the 2.0 version and switch (so far, just tried this one) to the Shrunklink provider, the problem goes away.
steve mcallister Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Wish I’d have found this blog about two weeks ago - after tearing my hair out trying to figure out why TinyURL Creator was no longer working, I see that apparently when I upgraded to FF3 (and therefore upgraded TinyURL Creator) I ran into a known bug. Any URL with special characters ($,#, space, etc) generates an invalid Tinyurl. I can get a good Tinyurl by going directly to http://www.tinyurl.com and entering the url, but it just doesn’t work with the extension. I did notice that bit.ly works fine, so I guess I’ll be using that one for the time being.
Bagmaster Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 7:10 am
I use your plugin extensively for posting links to Ebay auctions in forum groups. I’m using the latest version of it with FireFox ver. 3.0.1 and it creates bad links to any Ebay auction page I try it with. I can create the same link from the Tinyurl homepage and it works fine.
Here’s an example for you to test. There are two links on this page, the first one was created using your tinyurl pluugin for FireFox, the 2nd was created from the Tinyurl home page.
http://goldwingfacts.com/forums/forum5/53451.html
werun Says:
September 11th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
i had also been facing problem with tinyurl.com. So i was looking for an alternative. I found this one - http://turl.us . turl.us is much better than tinyurl.com. I now use http://turl.us. It provides complete stats and bulk submission. Also i can edit my urls anytime.
TB Says:
September 15th, 2008 at 6:20 am
I think the URL garbling may have only started for me after the 3.0.1 update, but it’s definitely happening to me now as well.
Rob McMillin Says:
October 30th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Jeremy — the problem referred to above with URL garbling has been a problem even prior to my upgrade to 2.0. It appears that CGI-style URLs are susceptible to this; important characters are being URL-encoded that should not be.
GD Says:
November 18th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Unfortunately, I have to confirm what everyone else is saying: TinyURL Creator hasn’t been encoding querystring information correctly from quite some time. Plus, the links on both Mozilla and MozMonkey still point to old versions of TURL-C.
Paul Nicholls Says:
December 1st, 2008 at 2:32 am
I’ve just come across this post, and I’m the creator of shrinkthislink.com - listed above as shrunklink.com, one of the domains that it shrinks to. I haven’t tried out this extension, as I made a Firefox extension long ago for shrinkthislink - which provides several different ways to interact with it. See http://shrinkthislink.com/helpers/ for more information.
Also, this blog post is from before the option of shrinking to the domain urlm.in - since your extension provides a list of services, you may wish to add the option to shrink to urlm.in - drop me a line if you’d like to know how to do this.
RNiK Says:
January 16th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Hello Mr. Gillick,
I’m an Italian Mozilla fanboy and I’ve just discovered your TinyURL Creator extension. I think it’s an useful extension but it could be better; my suggestion is to allow tinyurl creation not only in the browser page (this can be done via bookmarklet) but in the address bar and in history sidebar too (via right click). This implementation could boost extension productivity and give better features than any bookmarklet.
Hope you’ll find my suggestion interesting.
However, thanks for all the hard work with Firefox extensions!
Sincerly,
RNiK
P.S. I’m writing here ’cause your e-mail address for extensions support doesn’t seem to work anymore.