# Secure url redirects? **URL:** https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/secure-url-redirects/21070 **Category:** Questions **Created:** 2024-09-23T01:10:30Z **Posts:** 27 ## Post 1 by @wheat-travesty — 2024-09-23T01:10:30Z Hi, do you know of any services that have a good privacy url redirection / shortening service? Quite a lot of links from privacy apps have long urls that aren’t human readable. --- ## Post 2 by @fria — 2024-09-23T01:15:43Z You want to stick with the first party one. For example YouTube has a URL shortener if you use the share button. Otherwise you can figure out what parts of the URL are actually necessary and cut out the extra bits to shorten it. --- ## Post 3 by @xe3 — 2024-09-23T01:30:22Z > **Edit: Possibly misguided advice** > > ([see post #4](https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/secure-url-redirects/21070/4)) > I’m not 100% sure if I correctly understand what you are asking for/asking about, but my go-to when I want to shorten a link manually is Duckduckgo. > > For example, this is a ddg short url: [https://is.gd/QWI5GL](https://is.gd/QWI5GL) [[1]](#footnote-59745-1) and if you click it, you can see an example of how to generate them. * * * 1. example link resolves to [lmddgtfy.net](http://lmddgtfy.net) [↩︎](#footnote-ref-59745-1) --- ## Post 4 by @wheat-travesty — 2024-09-23T01:35:10Z Yeah, a shortening service like is.gd is cool, however I don’t know if you’ve read is.gd’s privacy policy, they use google analytics. --- ## Post 5 by @xe3 — 2024-09-23T02:05:29Z Thanks for alerting me to this. Apologies for the misguided advice. Until now, I was under the (apparently wrong) impression this was a DDG provided service, not a 3p integration. --- ## Post 6 by @anon55142611 — 2024-09-23T02:28:36Z In the case of the redirection, I would suggest Predirect (based on Mv3) or Libredirect (Powerful than Predirect but still on Mv2, Mv3 still on progress). Both are browser extension. There is a similar app for Android which is when set as the default Browser strips tracking and redirects URLs as required similar to Redirector extension. --- ## Post 7 by @wheat-travesty — 2024-09-23T03:11:32Z I’m looking for something that is more like a url shortening services like is.gd or bitly but is secure and private --- ## Post 8 by @asanyan — 2024-09-23T03:35:15Z some 0x0 instances have the shortening feature (though not 0x0.st) --- ## Post 9 by @anon45588987 — 2024-09-23T05:34:29Z > **[tny.lv | URL shortener](https://tny.lv/)** > **[Link shortener – La Contre-Voie](https://s.42l.fr/)** > > Link shortener service – La Contre-Voie --- ## Post 10 by @ph00lt0 — 2024-09-23T05:48:14Z It is a bad idea to use and trust third party link shorters. It prevents you from being able to check where the link will go and you will add another party that you need to trust with keeping the links secured and private. I see little reason to use any of these services. --- ## Post 11 by @wheat-travesty — 2024-09-23T06:02:58Z My use case is to share a privatebin url via word of mouth, not via qr code or otherwise. So having a short link someone can write down is a must. --- ## Post 12 by @ph00lt0 — 2024-09-23T06:42:29Z Share the passphrase by word of mouth. Put the url somewhere public would be a better idea imho. If you have to be that vigilant that you need to share a url by mouth you surely do not want to rely on a link shorter who could track the activity. --- ## Post 13 by @anon55142611 — 2024-09-23T09:13:03Z kutt.it is the one you are looking, But signup is disabled you can use a Public instance, [https://hstx.eu](https://hstx.eu) or [https://maglit.me](https://maglit.me): This one is advertised as encrypted never knew its working. --- ## Post 14 by @wheat-travesty — 2024-09-23T11:15:42Z These are very promising, thank you! --- ## Post 15 by @wheat-travesty — 2024-09-23T11:20:08Z 0x0 is also a very good choice, though I’m having a hard time finding their public instances. [envs.net](http://envs.net) seems to have it, do you know of others? --- ## Post 16 by @steve_donald34 — 2024-12-15T13:14:54Z Maglit-dot-me stop to work :frowning: Is there any other recommendations? (There are same topics on this forum, but they are old - before 2024. So I open new one.) --- ## Post 17 by @fria — 2024-12-15T14:42:15Z The recommendation would be to use the first party URL shortener if the website offers it or figure out what parts of the URL aren’t necessary so you can manually shorten it. --- ## Post 18 by @xe3 — 2024-12-15T16:53:12Z This isn’t a recommendation, but I sometimes use the shortener integrated into Duckduckgo search (is.gd). > **Their privacy policy isn't perfect but it is short and direct:** > > > is.gd Privacy Policy > > > > We do not collect any personally identifying information from users of is.gd. We store only the information necessary to provide our URL shortening service (such as original long URLs), information necessary to identify and track abuse of our service (such as IP addresses) and aggregate information to compile statistics on how individual links are used (such as browser and country of residence). > > > > We share information with 3rd parties where required to identify or track abuse or prevent future abuse (e.g. we may check submitted URLs against 3rd party blacklists and may share information on malicious URLs or abusive users with 3rd parties). When you create a QR code, we pass the relevant shortened URL to Google, since we use their Charts API to generate these. > > > > We use Google Analytics (see [Analytics Tools & Solutions for Your Business - Google Analytics](https://www.google.com/analytics/)) to collect and analyse site statistics. Google Analytics mainly uses first-party cookies to report on visitor interactions on this website. These cookies do not collect any personally identifiable information and are only used for the statistical collection of data such as visits and page hits. > > > > URLs shortened by is.gd are not private and should not be treated as such. Third parties could easily guess the short URL that you are using, so you should not use is.gd to link to sensitive or secure data. > > > > Anonymous statistics on shortened URLs you create (such as number of visits to them, creation date etc.) are not treated as private and will be made available to anyone through the site. --- ## Post 19 by @user1 — 2024-12-15T17:54:17Z I can’t find how is.gd is integrated in DDG, how does it work? --- ## Post 20 by @overuse — 2024-12-16T00:33:40Z > **[tny.lv | URL shortener](https://tny.lv/)** based on [Fiat Tux / Hat softwares / Lstu · GitLab](https://framagit.org/fiat-tux/hat-softwares/lstu) --- ## Post 21 by @xe3 — 2024-12-16T05:49:42Z > [@user1](#): > > I can’t find how is.gd is integrated in DDG, how does it work? You can just paste whatever URL you want to shorten into DDG search with the word `shorten` and it’ll generate a shortlink for you. [example](https://lmddgtfy.net/?q=shorten%20privacyguides.org) Also you can use the same pattern with `qr` to generate a QR code. --- ## Post 22 by @user1 — 2024-12-16T06:37:26Z Thank you! --- ## Post 23 by @anon45588987 — 2024-12-16T15:08:50Z tny.lv > **[Link shortener – La Contre-Voie](https://s.42l.fr)** > > Link shortener service – La Contre-Voie > **[MagLit🔥](https://maglit.me)** > > A Free and Open Source Encrypted Privacy Respecting Magnet/HTTP(s) Link Shortener reduced.to all open source and able self-hosted url shortener --- ## Post 24 by @mangomango — 2024-12-16T15:48:32Z > **[link.infini](https://link.infini.fr/)** Or [pnqk.me](http://pnqk.me) Or other instances listed at [https://wiki.chatons.org/doku.php/services/raccourcisseurs\_de\_liens/lstu](https://wiki.chatons.org/doku.php/services/raccourcisseurs_de_liens/lstu) --- ## Post 25 by @steve_donald34 — 2024-12-16T17:50:18Z thank you :slight_smile: but maglit does not work. if you try to shorten a url you will get an error. --- ## Post 26 by @Focus — 2024-12-18T22:12:25Z also an open source and self hosted one: [https://tny.lv/](https://tny.lv/) operatd by [adminforge.de](http://adminforge.de) in germany based on donations --- ## Post 27 by @cupcake — 2024-12-19T03:36:40Z Whats your use case for them though? For the occasional need to have short links for easier verbally mention or something like that it should be fine. Not for longevity, record keeping and archiving though. They’re among the reason for linkrot. Even the gargantuan google killed their once famously used everywhere goo.gl shortener.