URL Expanders

URL shorteners, like Bit.ly, have become ubiquitous with the meteoric rise of Twitter. The problem with them is that they cause people to click links without really having any idea where they go. To get around that problem, there are several browser addons that will expand the links for you so that you can see where your going and make some sort of informed decision as to whether you want to go there.

Bit.ly itself makes a Firefox add-on, and one for Chrome too, which serves this purpose not only for its own site but for others as well. On the downside, it has been reported to relay every non-https URL you visit to the servers. At least one commenter claims that it has serious performance issues if there are a lot of shortened URLs on a given page. While the "hang" on such pages wasn't too bad when I tried it, it was noticeable. It also makes you create an account.

Another very popular one is Long URL Please, which is currently the one I use. This one changes the URL in the document itself before displaying, and the link contents and the title depending on what options are selected. It avoids the performance issues by apparently skipping links if they take too long, which means you may have unconverted links here and there that can only be filled in by refreshing.

A little-known expander is Xpnd.it!. Like Bit.ly Preview it does the tooltip thing, but it also has the same performance issues that extension too. I'm also a bit wary of it due to  being such an unknown product (i.e., not enough people hammering on it to see if there's anything seriously wrong there).

Note: Use these at your own risk. I certainly can't guarantee that any of them are safe, nor that the other two don't have the same privacy concerns as Bit.ly Preview.