3.3 billion yuan. In the future, when encountering short URLs, still open them in the sandbox.
This article reviews Google's URL shortening service goo.gl, launched in 2009 with the selling points of "stable, reliable, and secure," and mentions that Google announced in 2024 it would stop providing the service a year later. The article opens with a classic literary quote, vividly describing the phenomenon of web resources decaying over time and links becoming invalid, and points out that link rot is an inevitable issue for all short URL services. Even though it was highly praised at its launch, the disappearance of several renowned services (such as Google Notebook) in history has raised doubts about the long-term sustainability of similar services.
Faced with this situation, Archive Team initiated an archiving campaign to preserve all original long URLs corresponding to goo.gl short URLs. The article details the Archive Team Warrior tool, which supports operation through Docker, Podman, or VirtualBox, allowing individuals with terminal operation experience to easily participate. According to tracking data, approximately 3.3 billion short URLs remain to be accessed, with only a few active ones left, and the archiving deadline is less than two weeks away, presenting significant challenges.
In the discussion forum, many netizens believe Google's move is mainly to save costs and reduce security risks, as short URLs are prone to abuse, potentially leading to phishing or other online fraud issues. Others argue that instead of spending effort using tools to archive manually, it would be better for Google to transfer the original database in bulk to public archives, reducing corporate burdens while ensuring the permanent preservation of historical data. Some technical experts highly praise the ease of operation and automation level of Archive Team Warrior, considering it an interesting and practical archiving tool.
Additionally, discussions mention that although short URLs were once popular due to factors like Twitter's character limit, their practicality and necessity have gradually decreased with modern platforms relaxing character limits. From both security concerns and economic efficiency perspectives, preserving online history and ensuring data transmission hold significant importance. Overall, the article and netizens' opinions collectively reflect the emphasis on preserving digital history and call on interested parties to join the battle against link decay.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44877021