URL Shorten

magwa

www.smugmug.com/shorten/
Seems to have disappeared reverting to Smugmug's home page.
Has the URL shortner gone somewhere else? or disappeared altogether?
Pam

Hero Jackie

Hi Pam,

SmugMug's link shortener is no more. We recommend using tinyurl dot com. (It's not letting me post the link lol)

Have a great weekend!
Jackie

magwa

Thanks Jackie - a shame:( I will have to use tinyurl instead.
Pam

Ferguson

@magwa said:
Thanks Jackie - a shame:( I will have to use tinyurl instead.
Pam

Just in the FWIW department, some people (many?) will not click on an abbreviated URL, because we can't tell where it goes. Malicious URL's are often shortened or otherwise hidden, so to me any abbreviated URL is ignored unless I think it is really, really important then I try to find a way to convert it to the full URL rather than actually clicking on it. Call me paranoid, but paranoia is growing more and more as a survival skill.

magwa

I appreciate that aspect as malicious URLs are indeed often shortened but with today's virus protectors being far better than they used to be I rely on them & not had a problem yet - famous last words:) but I click on anything I want to.
Tinyurl does give one the option of using a preview link, but I find this irritating & I know others do too.
I only use shortened links for linking my Smugmug albums together. My albums are just pictures of ships & when I see one from one year to the next, in different collections, I link them together for reference. It looks far better with a smu.gs link imho showing than a tinyurl one and people do click on the former, they realise they are going from one Smugmug page to another. Not so obvious with tinyurl. Just as an example, the one I did yesterday https://shipsnmoreships.smugmug.com/ShipsinEuropeanWaters/Cobh-Dublin-Belfast-2-4-Apr-2018/IDA-IMO-9109536/
Pam

Ferguson

@magwa said:
I appreciate that aspect as malicious URLs are indeed often shortened but with today's virus protectors being far better than they used to be I rely on them & not had a problem yet - famous last words:) but I click on anything I want to.

Pam, I mean this as constructively and kindly as possible, but the premise behind that comment is incredibly incorrect. The sophistication of attacks, the variety of attack vectors available, and the number not caught by anti-virus products, grows every day. Any given person's likelihood of being hit is still very low (and so feeds that feeling of security), but the behavior of the human in the loop and how risky their behavior is remains the single biggest determining factor in whether attacks fail or succeed. I urge you to read real security related documents and not trust marketing stories from AV companies. Remember that all their tests of "99.9% success" relate to tests of KNOWN attack vectors, but they mostly only become known when someone succeeds in finding a new attack and hit enough people to be noticed.

If it was as easy as keeping AV software installed, we would not have a new word "ransomware" and Baltimore would not have been without computers for a week (or any of innumerable other organizations).