URL stands for abbreviation of Uniform Resource Locator which is the global address of web pages, documents or other services. It consists of two main parts: one is protocol identifier and second is document address in from of domain name or IP. They are separated by a colon “:” and two forward slashes “//”. URL needs to be unique which may result in a longer URL as the World Wide Web is growing at an exponential scale. Also there is a tendency to pass descriptive attributes in the URL to forward different kinds of information. This may result in awful situation where URL looks ugly and can’t fit in Human Memory.

The solution produced to tackle the problem is URL Shortening which takes long URL addresses as input and outputs a unique and short URL. This short URL actually redirects you to the original web page. The URL shortening services became even more constructive with the popularity of micro blogging service known as Twitter which imposes a limit on maximum messages in a character. bit.ly is by far the most popular URL shortening service. The convenience of URL shortening services has pushed Google to launch goo.gl and youtube.be while Facebook to start fb.me.

It solely depends upon you which one you prefer for URL shortening. During web browsing on Google Chrome, you may need to shorten URLs quite often. Instead of moving to service’s webpage, you can use following extensions in Google Chrome for time saving.
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ChromeMUSE
This extension serves the both purposes.

• Shortening long URLs
• Expanding short URLs

It supports many popular URL shortening services. By default, goo.gl is enabled which can be configured from extension’s options. A favicon appears at the end of address bar. A click on the icon will short the URL according to preferences. This short URL is automatically placed in clipboard and can be pasted anywhere. The notable URL shortening services which can be chosen are bit.ly, is.gd, and TinyURL.

If you browse to a web page where shortened URLs are present, this extension will involuntarily expand the URLs. The titles and destination are shown when you move mouse cursor over the short URL.

You can configure ChromeMUSE to show a list of desired URL shortening services when you click the icon. Besides, the extension can be set to replace the short URL with actual URL after expansion.

URLShortener
This is another extension which allows URL shortening along with support to post on Twitter directly. It means that it is a kind of mini twitter client for Google Chrome. You can use popular URL shortening services like bit.ly, goo.gl, tinyURL, and is.gd. The services can be selected from extension’s options. If you want to link it with Twitter, the credentials have to be provided in options.

Untiny
If you are only interested in expansion of short URL to avoid any harmful effect like Phishing then this extension is for you. You need paste the short URL in the extension input box then the URL will expanded and will show you the destined web page.
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If you are happy with only one popular URL shortening services then you can stick with Bit.ly or goo.gl URL Shortener extensions. The decision is up to you which extension meets your needs in Google Chrome although I prefer ChromeMUSE.