Why Do URL Shortening Services Suck... Look Inside

GTP Dave · #1 (**permalink**) 08-11-2009, 08:01 AM

Recently URL shortening services like tr.im, tinyurl, Bit.ly, awe.sm have become quite popular because of services like Twitter and similar sites that need them because of limited character input in posts allowed.
Using these services should be only used in non critical uses as reliability is limited... if the service goes down so do your links.
I recommend using your own url shortener... here is a free one

Quote:

lilURL is a simple PHP/MySQL script for generating lil´ URLs. It's similar to TinyURL, Shorl, MakeAShorterLink, etc, but you can run it on your own server ((which is, yeah, pretty much the same thing as TightURL, but that didn't exist when I wrote lilURL)). Requires PHP and MySQL; supports mod_rewrite.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/lilurl/files/lilurl/

Rusrink · #2 (**permalink**) 11-21-2009, 01:43 PM

Great tool just installed it. To bad its not possible to password protect it against spammers

ivand · #3 (**permalink**) 11-21-2009, 02:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rusrink

Great tool just installed it. To bad its not possible to password protect it against spammers

You could always password protect it with .htaccess

GTP Dave · #4 (**permalink**) 11-21-2009, 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ivand

You could always password protect it with .htaccess

you`d actually have to write a workaround...

Rusrink · #5 (**permalink**) 11-22-2009, 02:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ivand

You could always password protect it with .htaccess

If you do that the short urls will be password protected also, so it wont work

ivand · #6 (**permalink**) 11-22-2009, 04:39 PM

Nope.. htaccess is pretty powerful.

Code:

AuthUserFile .htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName "This form is password protected!"
AuthType Basic

<Limit POST>
require valid-user
</Limit>

If you limit it to POST requests it will ask password when you try to submit new URL but GET requests will still work.

I just tried it out too and it works, so you owe me a beer

Rusrink · #7 (**permalink**) 11-22-2009, 07:42 PM

Hmmm didnt know that

Here your beer

. Its from yesterday, but hey there is still alcohol in it

ivand · #8 (**permalink**) 11-22-2009, 08:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rusrink

Hmmm didnt know that

Here your beer

. Its from yesterday, but hey there is still alcohol in it

Niiceee.. no problem I have already had some so I'm not able to taste it anyway

So.. complete .htaccess for lilurl looks like this:

Code:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule (.*) index.php

AuthUserFile .htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName "This form is password protected!"
AuthType Basic

<Limit POST>
require valid-user
</Limit>

Rusrink · #9 (**permalink**) 11-23-2009, 07:43 PM

Great. Gonna try it out this week!

GTP Dave · #10 (**permalink**) 11-23-2009, 07:54 PM

it all works rusrink...added zp both my url shortening services