UNFwd4.me - URL Unshortener with a twist

Today we are pleased to announce the launch of a brand new (beta) service.

We've taken our extremely popular URL Shortener, turned it inside out, upside down (and shook it all around a bit) and we have now published a brand new URL UN-shortener at http://UNfwd4.me

The idea is simple, just enter a short URL and the new URL Unshortener will tell you the real web site address that's hiding behind your shortened one.

For example, let's say you see a short URL on Twitter or in an email and you are unsure of where it forwards to. Just enter that short URL into http://UNfwd4.me and you will be presented with the real web site address that the short URL would forward you to.

Ideal if you think the short URL is suspicious or even malicious!

eg. Enter a short URL of 'http://fwd4.me/7Np' into http://UNfwd4.me and you will see it actually forwards to:

https://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/jobs.asp?isc=smtwlp

Perfectly safe in this instance, but it might not have been...

We have also developed an API so you can use our new URL Unshortener in your own applications or web sites.

Finally, our brand new URL Unshortener also goes one step further in its attempts to help you out. If you enter a short URL, our site will try and make it even shorter for you!

eg. Entering 'http://tinyurl.com/ybh9drs' will show you the long URL that it would have redirected you too, plus it will also make that short URL even shorter still. In this case 'http://tinyurl.com/ybh9drs' becomes 'http://fwd4.me/9HY' so your old short URL was 26 characters long and your new short URL is just 18 characters, that's a reduction of 8 characters (and every character counts when using Twitter!)

Our new URL Unshortener has been through a good private testing phase and is now available to everyone as a public beta.

We welcome your feedback!

Shortened one? Now you can shorten another from the same page!

Continuing development on the feature requests that people send us, we had a couple of requests for this one - Mainly from @GoDaddy and @nfuetterer but we're sure other people will find this handy too.

Quite a simple one, but hopefully useful, when you enter a long URL you are presented with the result (a short URL).

What you now also get is the option to create another short URL from your results page (click the screenshot to enlarge):


In other words, you don't now need to click back to the home page of the site to create another short URL.

Handy? Let us know!

Don't forget, if you have any feature requests, be sure to get in touch.

Not happy with your short url? Then change it!

We've had a couple of requests for this one, so for all those of you who need it, enjoy!

In the past, if a URL had already been shortened by http://fwd4.me then that was it, you were stuck with that short URL forever - even if you wanted to make a new short or custom URL, you would still be presented with the old one, no matter what it was.

Here's an example:

http://www.keepbritaintidy.org was shortened back in May to just http://fwd4.me/kbt

While this is great, it's nice and short and all that, but it might not be ideal for everyone. You might not want to use /kbt...

So we are pleased to announce that using our Advanced Mode, you now have the option to create custom short URLs for long URLs that already exist.

For instance, you can now shorten http://www.keepbritaintidy.org to http://fwd4.me/kbtdec09 or maybe http://fwd4.me/dec-email or maybe even http://fwd4.me/abc123 etc. either way, you now have the option to shorten it to whatever you like.

Therefore, if you are not happy with the short URL that gets presented to you, simply switch to advanced mode and select a new one (click the screenshot to enlarge):


Hope this helps!

As per usual, if you have any feature requests that you'd like to see added in to future releases of http://fwd4.me then please get in touch.

Guilty as charged...

They seem to be coming along at a terrify rate lately...

Today sees the dawn of yet another landmark figure in our continuing crusade to shorten the Internet of unneeded characters.

With a Christmas theme attached, we're pleased to announce we are now:


Yup, two and a half million characters!

It would seem we are still the fastest growing URL shortening site in the world too, it was only last month when we became responsible for making the Internet 1,000,000 characters shorter and now we're at 2,500,000 already.

The short URL which took us over the 2,500,00 mark was:

http://fwd4.me/8hF

Starting life as a 332 character long URL of 'http://www.benjaminmoore.com/bmpsweb/portals/bmps.portal?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=sidebarportlet_1_6&sidebarportlet_1_6_actionOverride=%2Fbm%2Fcms%2FContentRenderer%2FselectSideBarArticle&sidebarportlet_1_6np=public_site%2Farticles%2Fexplore_color%2Fec_virtual_fan_deck&sidebarportlet_1_6isNonSecure=true&_pageLabel=fa_colordirection', we shortened it down to just 18, a saving of 314 characters.

Unfortunately, unlike our last landmark figure, we can't tell you who created this short URL. If it was you though, get in touch!

In other news, the popularity and use of our API has exploded in recent weeks too, mostly due to the fantastic Shorten URL Firefox add-on which allows you to shorten the URL of the web page you are currently viewing, without needing to open a new tab or browse away from it.

If you're wondering how all this URL shortening stuff works, be sure to check out our detailed explanation at http://fwd4.me/HowItWorks

In other news, we're also still working hard on the white label URL shortener that we mentioned back in September which allows you to use your domain name with our technology to give you your very own personalised URL shortening web site. We've got a couple of organisations and a couple of individual people signed up for a beta run over the next couple of weeks - we'll let you know how it goes.

Well, that's about it for this post, keep watching the blog as we'll be unveiling yet another fantastic new service later this week which we're sure you'll all love.

So, to everyone who has ever used our URL shortener, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Thanks for all your continued support!

Shorten URL - The most popular Firefox Add-on for shortening URLs

A change from the norm in this update today.

Our friend LouCypher, aka @Zoolcar9 has written a fantastic add-on for the popular Firefox web browser which we just have to tell you about!

Entitled Shorten URL, it is the Ronseal of add-ons - it does exactly what it says on the tin.

At only 36kb in size, this add-on will have zero impact on the performance of your browser, yet will make life so much easier you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.

It couldn't be any easier to use either, simply right click on any web page and choose the new 'Shorten This Page URL (FWD4.me)' option. The current address bar in your browser will then immediately be replaced with a new, shorter url!

Not only that, you can right click on any link in any web page, then select the 'Shorten This Page URL (FWD4.me)' option and again, your address bar will show you the new short url:


Told you it was easy!

There are advanced options too, these allow you to change the provider of your url shortening services (although why you'd want to use anything other than Fwd4.Me is beyond us!) and also the handy option of having your new short urls automatically copied to your clipboard.

You can download the Shorten URL add-on for Firefox at http://fwd4.me/ShortenURL

We love it, and going by the 27,000+ downloads it's had, so do a lot of other people. We're sure you will too!

UPDATE: Google Chrome users, we've not forgotten you, check out the Chrome Extension here!

API bug fixed

Thanks to @octahedron80 for letting us know about this one!

There was a bug in the API which prevent your API-created short URLs showing up in your stats page on the main web site.

The bug was fixed around an hour ago, but if for some reason the short URLs you created via the API are not showing up in your stats page, please get in touch!