If you want or need to run your own version of TightURL, TinyURL, MakeAShorterLink, or Shorl, you've come to the right place. If you're running a redirector like lilURL and need some relief from phishing and spamming abuse, you've also come to the right place.
This is the homepage of the TightURL Project. As explained on the homepage, TightURL takes a very long URL as input, and returns a very short URL within the TightURL namespace. For example, this URL:
http://www.a-very-long-domain-name.example.com/~someoneshomedirectory/bleh/bla h.html
Can be shortened down to something like:
The URL returned by TightURL returns a HTTP Redirect to the browser, which causes it to load the original very long URL. The primary purpose of TightURL is to allow people to shorten very long URLs that would otherwise wrap when pasted into e-mail messages. URL wrapping in e-mail messages usually results in broken links. The e-mail program will convert everything up to the end of the first line into a hyperlink, and the rest of the URL gets ignored.
Features of TightURL:
Requirements:
Any LAMP server.
- Linux (or probably any of the BSDs)
- Apache Web Server, ability to edit httpd.conf or use .htaccess files.
- MySQL Database server
- PHP scripting language.
TightURL may also work on a WAMP (Windows/Apache/MySQL/PHP) server, but is untested on this platform. Please advise me if you have a working Windows TightURL service.
News:
2009-11-02: I have been away from TightURL's code for an extended period of time now. The version I run publicly is pretty active though, and it's basically the same one in release with the addition of the "killbot" which I use to re-check URLs. My intent is to release a new version of TightURL in 2009 that at least contains the killbot. I may start over on the "major update" code, which I've been a bit unhappy with. The other feature I hope to include soon is translations. A number of people have asked about them, and I'd like to try and accommodate users who wish to run a non-English version of TightURL.
2008-07-24: TightURL version 0.1.3 has been released to address some bugs and other user requests. This version contains a new barebones installer script that sets up or upgrades your database, and several features backported from the mmajor update of TightURL that is still under heavy development. This includes a speedy new anti-abuse system, the Bad Behavior anti-abuse plugin, URL existence verification and more.
2008-06-05: A major update to TightURL should be coming out in July 2008, maybe August. I'd like to get this out sooner rather than later, but all the anti-abuse stuff has turned TightURL from a simple one-file script with a couple of HTML templates into a conglomeration of thousands of lines of code and data, across over three dozen files now. Major features of this update: Preview capability, Web-based abuse reporting, All new (fast and working) URI BL checking with a significantly more accurate algorithm, checks submissions against local blacklists of other redirection sites (users submitting URLs from other redirectors are always up to no good), and lists of abusive domains, URI validation routine now allows Yahoo's invalid URLs and probably most invalid but working URLs, can check to ensure submitted URLs exist on the public Internet at time of acceptance, off-line (cron/AT) re-checking of the database against URL BLs, and full support for what must be the greatest anti-Web abuse system ever, Bad Behavior. I may hold off releasing some new code I've written that helps run the TightURL Project itself until after releasing all the other stuff first, in order to get all that other stuff that people actually use already out faster. That said, I will be releasing everything I use as the TightURL project maintainer, in the unlikely event it's useful to someone who wants to fork TightURL (this has happened twice that I know of) or in the event I'm hit by a bus and there's a party interested in taking over.
2007-12-28: Found out about lilURL, which wasn't posted on SourceForge until April 2005. I really don't find SourceForge's services terribly useful, but I think it's important to have your project there, so that people find your stuff. Had I found code for lilURL, I probably would have installed it instead of writing TightURL. Anyway, the public installation of lilURL at http://kenmickles.com/lilurl/ claims to have fallen prey to spammers, (and suggests tinyurl <- sadness) which certainly comes as no surprise to me. It is said that any idiot can write a redirector in a few lines of Perl/PHP/Python. I was the proof of that. The bulk of the work beyond that easily implemented functionality is in the anti-abuse protection, as abuse continues to be a major problem, and has turned something that should be simple into an ongoing production, not unlike all other forms of Internet abuse.
2005-12-24: TightURL still has not been officially tested on a WAMP server, but I have a report indicating that it works.
Project Status:
Nightly tarballs (when produced) will be found at: http://tighturl.com/sourcecode . The testing version of TightURL corresponds to the developer's code in sourcecode, and is used to produce any nightly tarballs. The testing version has its own database, and will frequently be wiped out and recreated with no prior notice.
REMEMBER:Nightly tarballs are simply a snapshot of the developer's version of TightURL taken at a random moment in time. This version is not guaranteed to work at any given time.A beta version, TightURL v.0.1.3 was released July 24, 2008.
An alpha version, TightURL v.0.1 was been released on Tuesday, December 2, 2004.Please keep in mind "alpha" and "beta" software is not considered bug-free. There are no (verified) known bugs though.
Download Releases Snapshots Documentation Forums Report a Bug Mailing Lists SVN
Now Hosted At