f.lapo.it

Jessica🏳️‍🌈 mastodon (AP)

I once ran my own personal URL shortener but eventually killed it because it wasn't that useful, but I kept the links working, and in fact they still work _to this day_ because I converted them from a dynamic PHP web application to a little list of nginx URL redirects.

Google have comparatively infinite budget and can't figure out how to be a respectful web citizen.
social.kernel.org/objects/3912…


Ah joy ... Google is turning off its URL shortener and breaking every link that ever used it:

developers.googleblog.com/en/g…

A quick search on lore.kernel.org:

lore.kernel.org/all/?q=goo.gl%…

...turns up about 19,000 messages with affected links. That's a lot of history that is going to become harder (or impossible) to find.


1
my IRC logger has existed for longer than dozens if not hundreds of Google products
1
A single Raspberry with an old SD and a crappy USB adapter can last longer than some of those.
3
@lapo in our experience those last about six months