(C) BoingBoing
This story was originally published by BoingBoing and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



Rogue engineer creates URL lengthener for making your links worse on purpose [1]

['Grant St. Clair']

Date: 2025-08-11

Given how shitty AI is making the Internet nowadays, it's almost refreshing to see an actual human making it worse. It's like having a favorite Bond villain — you don't like their evil plans, but you can at least appreciate the vast intricacy of them. If you fancy a bit of that organic enshittification, allow me to introduce you to the URL lengthener, a tool created by Reddit user Namit111 for seemingly no other purpose than making your Internet experience just a little bit worse.

In essence, it does the exact opposite of URL shortening services like bit.ly, making your hyperlinks as long and cumbersome as possible, presumably to make everyone you interact with hate you. Astound your relatives! Drive away your friends! Make your coworkers plot your death by including them in every email!

Take, for instance, tumblr.com. You know it. You love it. Put through the lengthener, those nine little letters become…

I hate this, but I love it.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://boingboing.net/2025/08/11/rogue-engineer-creates-url-lengthener-for-making-your-links-worse-on-purpose.html

Published and (C) by BoingBoing
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/boingboing/