Expand – A Chrome Extension for Expanding Short Links
December 15, 2009
The Chrome Extensions Gallery opened up last week, bringing extensions to millions of Chrome users. Ahead of the opening, I developed an extension which answered a question I’ve asked myself almost daily while on the web: Where is this short link taking me?
Some web apps, like Brizzly, will automatically expand short links on their site, but what I wanted was a way to always know where short links would send me, regardless of the site I was on. Additionally, I wanted a way that wouldn’t break the normal flow of web browsing. So, I created Expand, an extension that determines the destination of short links and shows the user the destination when hovering over a link.
To test it, just install Expand and hover over this bit.ly link. You’ll notice a hover effect that looks like this:
Sample usage of Expand
Also, if the link location matches the link text, Expand will replace the link text with the short link’s destination. See what happens with this link after you install Expand: http://bit.ly/80Y4t5
Currently, Expand only works with bit.ly links, but I’m looking to increase the number of short linking services it works with. I’m also working on performance optimization because the last thing I want is for Expand to slow down a user’s browsing experience.
Update (12/18/2009): Expand now supports over 30 short linking services!