On 3 Jan 2006 at 10:17, Wayne Johnson wrote: > At 09:39 AM 1/3/2006, Bernie Cosell typed: > >Correct -- there's no way to know where tinyurl is going to take you > >until after you get there, which might be too late. > > Email clients don't display the redirected URL in the status bar or > in a balloon tip.
Correct -- that would actually be very hard. Since the email client can't tell if it is going to be a redirect or not, the only thing it could possibly do is actually try *fetching* the URL and see if it gets back a 300. It couldn't do that automatically [email clients, IMO, should *NEVER* automatically open a web connection without the express approval of the user!], but I suppose there could be a "check this URL" function that'd tell you if it was a real site or a redirect [and where it was about to redirect you to]. > ... It's not like receiving html email where the URL > that is displayed is something other than what is in the source html. > In Eudora if I get one of those PayPal or eBay phishing messages > Eudora pops up a warning that the url is a numerical address & that > they are most often used in phishing schemes. Right - Pegasus does that, too -- that's just a local affair, though: comparing the info *between* the <a> and </a> with the actualy HREF info *in* the <a>. That's easy for email clients to do [and most do these days, I suspect] > ... I suppose if Tiny or > Snip & etc URLs did the same thing in Eudora & other email clients > then it might be ok but until then I stay away from those URL types. Problem is that your email client doesn't know, and can't tell, that a redirect is about to happen. In general, when you click on these things, your email client passes the URL to your browser to open it, and so your email client *never*knows* that you got redirected: your browser got the 300 and dealt with it. The email client would have to fetch the URL to see what it was and where it went, and THEN pass it to the browser [to be fetched again]. > FWIW they will never be able to display a warning about redirected > URLs because the redirection is NOT on your system anywhere. Right, but a well-designed redirect site could: if instead of giving you a 303 and automatically redirecting you who-knows-where, it *could* get you to a small [= quickly loaded] page that *told*you* where it was about to send you, and then let you click 'OK' to actually go there. /bernie\ -- Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Pearisburg, VA --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- -- ---------------------------------------- To Change your email Address for this list, send the following message: CHANGE WIN-HOME your_old_address your_new_address to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Note carefully that both old and new addresses are required.
