I recently wrote about a how to use Google’s URL shortener service Goo.gl without any toolbars or extensions. To that post Matthew Flaschen commented about a couple of tools he has developed. They are a Firefox Addon and a bookmarklet to use Goo.gl. I quite liked them and hence here is the review.
Firefox Addon for Goo.gl
- Click here to download the Firefox Addon for using Goo.gl URL shortener without using Google toolbar on Firefox.
- Click on View >> Toolbars >> Customize. Here just drag and drop the Goo.gl addon to any toolbar on Firefox browser.
- Next visit any page you want to share, click on the addon button and the short URL is copied. Simply paste it wherever you want to share it.
- This also works with the latest upgrade of Firefox 3.6 (Read about the upgrade here).
Why I liked this Add-on a lot is that I can simply click on the addon button and the url is copied. Most other short url generators create the url and make you copy it manually. Here I just had to paste it.
Firefox Bookmarklet
Another way to use Goo.gl url service is by using it through a bookmarklet. A bookmarklet is something which behaves like a toolbar when you click on it (Read about how Google brought Sidewiki into Chrome using Bookmarklets).
- Click here to get to the page of the Bookmarlet for Goo.gl.
- Just drag and drop the link to your bookmarks tab.
- When you visit a page click on the bookmark and the short Goo.gl url is shown.
I felt using the Firefox add-on a lot more friendly to use than using then bookmarklet. Anyways this is very useful for people who want to use Goo.gl url shortener without using Google toolbar on Firefox.
Let me know what you think about it through your comments.
9 Comments
Goo.gl short URL is really attractive and Secured tiny URL service.. Google had guaranteed its security!! Google always produces the best product over the web. 🙂
Arijit, I can’t see any need of security for something as simple as URL shortener.
@Abhisek: there is a need for security for something like a URL shortener as a lot of malicious websites are being sent to people in the form of short URLs. The last virus doing the rounds of Facebook actually uses short url. Because of short URL we have no idea which domain we are visiting until the page starts to load on the browser by which time it can be too late.
I just confirmed that the extension ( https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/55308/ ) works on Firefox 3.6, and updated it so it’s marked as compatible.
Thanks Matthew, made the changes to the post. Great work.
It is only few days and the firefox addon is ready, this is cool, people are quite fast. Thanks for sharing it.
Thanks a bunch for the good information – I was wondering about ways to use goo.gl, as I use chrome and didn’t see anything for it (then again, maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough). By the way, do you know if you can track these clicks like you can with bit.ly? I like the google service more (more secure, like others were saying) but I do miss the tracking stats. Maybe a way to add them to analytics??? Thanks!
@Nathan: Good point, might be worth researching about for checking it can be tracked with analytics. Ill try and see if i come across something, 😉
There is no analytics support yet for goo.gl.