Digg Short URL Expander is a Greasemonkey script by Of Zen and Computing that expands Digg Short URLs. This user script modifies links on any web page so that the link URL points to the actual site being linked instead of an intermediary Digg.com page.
The Digg Short URL Controversy
Social news site Digg provides a URL shortening service that allows people to easily post links on sites like Twitter which limit the size of a message. The URL to the page being linked might be very long — the URL to the page you are currently reading for example, http://www.ofzenandcomputing.com/zanswers/2288, is 46 characters long and would therefore consume over 30% of the space allotted to you in a Twitter status update. But by shortening it to http://digg.com/u195mh with Digg’s URL shortening service, it becomes 22 characters long and only takes up 17% of the space allotted.
Controversy has risen around Digg’s URL shortening service. At first, linked pages were wrapped in a Digg-branded frame which motivated many bloggers, publishers and web developers to implement “frame killers” on their sites. And yesterday Digg was accused of hitting users with a bait and switch scheme by modifying the behavior of its URL shortening service so that visitors land on an intermediary Digg web page describing the linked site, instead of the site itself.
“Digg’s Kevin Rose Not Pleased With DiggBar Change“ by TechCrunch notes that Digg founder Kevin Rose is not pleased with this change and we will likely see the new policy modified or reversed soon.
Fix it yourself with the Digg Short URL Expander
Why wait for an official announcement when the amazing flexibility the Firefox web browser gives you the power to modify the behavior of Digg Short URLs on your own? Install our Digg Short URL Expander Greasemonkey script and clicking Digg Short URLs will take you straight to the web page the publisher intended you to see.
Before you can use the Digg Short URL Expander script, you must be using Mozilla Firefox and have the Greasemonkey add-on installed.
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