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Is the Web Heading Toward Redirect Hell?

Posted by timothy on from the here-let-me-bounce-you-a-few-times dept.

Ant snips from Royal Pingdom this excerpt: "Google is doing it. Facebook is doing it. Yahoo is doing it. Microsoft is doing it. And soon Twitter will be doing it. We're talking about the apparent need of every web service out there to add intermediate steps to sample what we click on before they send us on to our real destination. This has been going on for a long time and is slowly starting to build into something of a redirect hell on the Web. And it has a price."

15 of 321 comments (clear)

  1. bit.ly by eflester · · Score: 0, Funny

    I reached this article from Twitter, via this URL: http://bit.ly/cTGasX

  2. To be honest the web was getting a bit fast... by youn · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... so they had to find yet another way to slow things down... so the web could live up to its reputation of "world wide wait" ;)

    --
    Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that :p
  3. My Idea by wbav · · Score: 5, Funny

    I want to create a redirect loop. Just imagine, google to tinyurl to bit.ly to dilv.it back to google.

    Or you could always just make a really long way to get to someone who'll never give you up, never let you down.

    --

    =================
    Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
  4. Re:How do you get offenders to stop? by spazdor · · Score: 2, Funny

    What an uncharacteristically even-handed Slashdot response!

    You must be a noob.

    --
    DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
  5. Re:How do you get offenders to stop? by CraftyJack · · Score: 2, Funny

    Funny just this morning I noticed that it took at least 5 redirects or more for Google to let me login to Analytics. It felt like my browser had a life of its own!

    Sure, but you're already saving 2-5 seconds per search with Google instant, so you still come out ahead.

  6. Re:It's a shame too... by mpicker0 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I prefer to use "lengthened" URLs: http://hugeurl.com/.

  7. Said the Rich Executive: by Even+on+Slashdot+FOE · · Score: 2, Funny

    Oh dear God yes! We can abuse JavaScript more to get more clicks!

  8. Re:How do you get offenders to stop? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    So you're saying the internet really is a series of tubes!

  9. Infinite loop by ron-l-j · · Score: 2, Funny

    I think we could just write a Java program that will loop through a range of your top 10 urls every minute. Then you would never have to click. Call it autoBrowser. Because no one should actually click on things.

  10. Re:How do you get offenders to stop? by omnichad · · Score: 2, Funny

    Oh, so THAT'S why Slashdot doesn't support a wider Unicode character set.

  11. Re:Techie price greater than luser price by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Fuck you if you want to spend your time watching me

    Oh, come on! What am I going to fap to now?

  12. Shady URL's by sirrunsalot · · Score: 5, Funny

    Personally, I find the trend of redirecting to innocent sites via shady URL's much more alarming: http://5z8.info/foodporn_e0g0l_taliban-meetup

    (I promise I'll get modded "troll" by someone who glanced at the link and assumed the worst. Hard to blame them, but I do love using those links whenever possible...)

  13. Re:It's a shame too... by zerocool^ · · Score: 3, Funny

    Myself, I prefer shady urls.

    http://www.shadyurl.com/

    http://slashdot.org/
    becomes
    http://5z8.info/aryanbr0ther00d_l9e5b_malicious-cookie

    --
    sig?
  14. Re:How do you get offenders to stop? by Steeltoe · · Score: 2, Funny

    Fuck off!

    Creds. NOW!!!

    --
    http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
  15. Re:How do you get offenders to stop? by gullevek · · Score: 2, Funny

    Write in japanese and suddenly you can write a whole novel in 140 characters.

    --
    "Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919