Twitter brought us shortened URLs services into the internet, even Google started goo.gl shortened URL service to allows users to post feeds to twitter through their FeedBurner’s socialized service and now goo.gl available to all. Malware writers sharing shortened links for bad sites with malware to users on social networking sites like Twitter,Facebook and other sites. There is danger with shortened links on twitter. URL X-ray a web app allows to find out original URL without need of clicking the shortened link.
Similar kind of service offered by Untiny which allows to extract the original URL by entering the shortened link.
You can use bit.ly preview extension to know where the link points to.Bit.ly provides spam and malware protection to their links.So users from bit.ly links are protected.But there are so many URL Shorteners in internet including some for fun, even security vendors like McAfee offering URL shortening service.
So if you’re suspicious about any shortened link, visit URL X-ray and enter the link.Click “X-ray” to know the original URL. URL X-ray bookmakrlet makes it even easy to check where shortened link points to. Drag the bookmarklet to browser’s bookmark bar and use.