Micro blogging site Twitter has launched in June the t.co URL shortener and began formatting links that are 20 characters long or greater. Now, the service has announced that the program will be expanded to reformat all posted links in the future.
“Tens of millions of links are tweeted on Twitter each day,” said the developers from Twitter in a post in its official blog. “Wrapping these shared links helps Twitter protect users from malicious content while offering useful insights on engagement. All links submitted within tweets and direct messages, regardless of length, will eventually be wrapped with t.co.”
Every link that is converted by the service will be checked for malware. When a user clicks a link to a potentially hazardous site, the service will redirect them to a page, warning them that the site may be malicious. Unlike bit.ly and other link shorteners, Twitter’s t.co displays the domain name, so its users will know what they are clicking on. Although only a few characters are displayed, the new link shortener will function with bit.ly and other shorteners normally.
This move by Twitter seems to edge out third party websites that make money off the service. Twitter has also recently announced its own photo sharing service, which also seems to edge out companies that give similar services.
If this new feature will effectively provide users a safer experience by helping them avoid going to phishing links and malicious sites, then there’s nothing bad with the change.
Currently, the link shortening service of Twitter is only available for posted links and is not available as a link shortening service.
via: Mashable
