Earlier today, Amit wrote about the new API for Goo.gI, Google’s URL shortening service. Google launched the goo.gl service in December of 2009. Since that time, many people have adopted it over other URL shortening services such as Bit.ly and tinyURL. The two main reasons for adoption are that goo.gl filters and warns people about bad web sites, and it’s also recently been recognized as the fasted URL shortener.
At first the goo.gl links were only offered in the Google Toolbar. A little later, bookmarklets and other browser add-ons, such as Goo.gl for Firefox, were offered.
I recently tried the goo.gl URL shortener for Chrome.
The extension installs easily, just as most other Google Chrome extensions do. Once installed, you’ll see a little gray and green icon in the top right corner of the browser.
When you are at a website that you wish to create a short link for, click the goo.gl icon to create the short URL. It’s simple to use, but there are also many other features that are offered in this extension.
* short URLs are automatically copied to clipboard
* show goo.gl history and traffic
* add Keyboard shortcuts for posting to other services
* create short URL from right clicking on links
* create QR Codes
You can also create links and automatically post them to your favorite web services, such as Blogger, Delicious, Digg, EverNote, Facebook, FriendFeed, Gmail, Google bookmarks, Google Buzz, Google Reader, Hotmail, Instapaper, LinkedIn, Mail, MySpace, Netlog, Orkut, Ping.fm, Posterous, Reddit, Read It Later, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Tumblr, Twitter, Yahoo! Bookmarks and Yahoo! Mail.
The only other URL browser extension that I’ve found as useful, is the Shareaholic extension, which has very similar features.
Install the goo.gl URL shortener for Google Chrome browser
