KnowURL Protect Yourself from Short URL Attacks
URL shorteners are the web services which makes the Alias of long URL. They provide you a very short URL which can be used to link in place of the original one. This makes it easier to share long links of Twitter, SMS etc, where you have limit of characters. But since you don't know the exact address hidden behind the shotened URL, you might be cheated and led to malware, phishing sites. Which may download virus, spywares and scripts. Some Shortener like Bit.ly and Goo.gl scan the link before shortening. But all don't have such feature.
Recently my friend Abhi who blogs at techbusy.org launched KnowURL which lets users submit and know the original URL behind it.
This tool shows the extracted URL after redirection of Short URL. KnowURL will help to keep us safe from any kind of hacker attacks active on social media.
They have developed a nice website both web and mobile version. Currently KnowURL supports all URL shorteners. This is already buzzing in web. Do check every URL alias before visiting the link and prevent hacker's attack.
What More Do You Want?
I would like to suggest Abhi to include a flagging feature, so that if someone finds a URL to be leading to malwares than users can flag it blacklisted for ease of others.
If knowURL collaborates with some Open Source security database such as urlblacklist.com and shallalist.de which collects the blacklisted and spam links, so that knowURL can warn users that the short link is blacklisted.
If you have any suggestion for KnowURL than use the comment box below. KnowURL will listen to you.
Web KnowURL.com
Mobile m.KnowURL.com
I hope you get benefits from this tool. Did you like it? Did you ever get any attack from short URLs?
Your Friend
Shekhar Sahu
Also Read
Use Google's URL shortener Goo.gl with Feedburner & Twitter
MURL The Master of URL Shorteners
Bit.ly More than a URL Shortner
Linkedin Launches it's Native URL Shortener lnkd.in
Twitter Launches it's Native URL Shortener twee.tt
All Posts about URL Shortener
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20 comments for this post
Wow thank you very much for writing. I liked all the feature you suggested specially the flagged one. I will try to add them. But it will increase the server time and delay site speed.
Let me try it first. Thanks again. I would be happy if other can suggest more features.
I know it's hard to compromise with space/time. but you can do it.
Shekhar I added the scanning feature. Have a look. Try it now. Tell me your feedback.
Yes, scams on Facebook makes it difficult to find what is hidden in links sent from friends. This can help in such case.
I mostly use goo.gl and aafter.com as my favorite URL shorteners, but will surely use the recommended one. Thanks!
That's a great idea =)
Abhi, really done a good job but I still prefer untiny Firefox addon.
This is a really great tool mate! As the internet gets more and more dangerous... we need tools like this to protect us! And the best thing is, now they also scan the URLs for malware! Cool isn't it? :D
Thanks for sharing Shekhar :) its a great tool.
Nice post! Thanks for sharing..
@Areafat untiny supports only few hundred shortening services and we support thousands including all future services too. We are ready for the future : I am planning to create firefox extension also if I get time.
I was waiting for your answer Abhi. Yeah Arafat it's just the starting, and he's adding many new features..
@Shekhar what I found is that generally people use website as compared to addon. Because people don't unshort all links, they choose according to their interest and they copy and paste them.
this is really cool feature.. i ahve never tried this before.
very nice work by Abhi and his team members....
Really helpfull in Twitter
Yeah.. Abhi has done a great job with KnowURL.. :D I've tried it, and I was impressed.
this happens all the time with twitter.
some interesting post might lead to some spammers site.
@Vicky
Thats true
I mostly use goo.gl and aafter.com as my favorite URL shorteners, but will surely use the recommended one. Thanks!
Nice post! Thanks for sharing..