Getting Rid Of Short URL Frames (UPDATE 09/17/09)

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Getting Rid Of Short URL Frames (UPDATE 09/17/09)

Posted by: Matt Tags: bit.ly, digg, ow.ly, social media Posted date: August 19, 2009 | Comment

Getting Rid Of Short URL Frames

I am a big fan of Twitter but, unfortunately, we can blame it for most URL shorteners. A short URL is very useful on Twitter because Twitter only allows 140 characters so less is more. Twitter is great for sharing and receiving links but the recent trend by some URL shortening services is to add a frame or bar above the actual web page. This is something that drives me crazy! To do this they are basically wrapping the original page in a page of their own. It’s a problem because if I want to bookmark (for me bookmarking is adding to delicious.com) the site I can’t. I would actually bookmark the URL of the “wrapping” website. If I add this to my bookmarking service and the service disappears then I will never be able to get back to that site. This is only one example, there are many.

To combat this I have enlisted the help of GreaseMonkey. GreaseMonkey is an add-on to Firefox that lets you add scripts to your Firefox browser. I’ve already got GreaseMonkey installed but I needed to search out some additional scripts. A great place for this is Userscripts.org. I was originally hoping for a single script that would do it all but unfortunately I could not find just one. However, I did find some very useful scripts.

DiggBar Killer: Obviously this script gets rid of the DiggBar. Dig it!
Facebook Direct Links: This script skips the “are you sure you want to click on this link” page. Of course I do, that’s why I clicked it!
Ow.ly Frame Remover v2: This gets rid of the Ow.ly bar. Stupid owls!
StumpleUponRemover: This script gets rid of the StumbleUpon bar. Bye bye!

That takes care of the major culprits that come to mind. If you have any more recommendations then please leave them in the comments. I hope this helps.

UPDATE 09/17/09

Another script that I have just started using is Social News: Re-Direct Target Link. This script will take you straight to the story you want instead of a social media landing page that you then have to click a link to get to the story you want.

(Image Credit: Faheem Patel)

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Matt
I'm Matt and I share how to build an internet presence through internet business, social marketing, lifestyle design and productivity tools. While here, read about me to learn my story or find out how you can hire me.

1 Comment for Getting Rid Of Short URL Frames (UPDATE 09/17/09)

10 Great Extensions For Chrome

[...] Frame Blockers – I have a strong dislike for frames or tool bars that are added to websites by a third party. I wrote about a few user scripts that I use in Firefox to block these. I am not going to list all those scripts here again but you can read the original article I wrote about those blockers here. [...]