2018 --

This is the 21st Century, where it's difficult to find anyone who does a good job at describing a device and how it works. Allow me to fill in.

I've been using this add-on for about 45 seconds. If you're on a webpage that includes shortened URLs (bit.ly, etc.), you have to right-click on the webpage -- anywhere on the webpage -- and click "Expand Shortened URLs," an item that this add-on adds to the context menu. At that point, shortened URLs are not expanded, you've only activated The Expander for that page.

After activating The Expander for that webpage, when you wave your mouse over a shortened URL, the expanded URL appears in the status bar. Then, if you click "Copy Link Location," the EXPANDED URL will be copied to the clipboard, which is good. At that point, if you paste the expanded URL into a blank address bar, you have the opportunity to erase all the tracking junk (or whatever it is) at the end of the expanded URL, before you hit Enter.

For instance, I Copied Link Location and pasted into an address bar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO_CCJz0QAs&lc=z22us3455ozedt53hacdp435it0nxqlrtfefm1043bdw03c010c

But I eliminated the stuff at the end, and reduced it to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO_CCJz0QAs

When I tapped Enter, the proper youtube started playing, even without all the stuff at the end of the url.

4 out of 5 stars for this add-on. I would be delighted if any shortened URL -- on any webpage -- would be expanded by waving the mouse over it, without being required to click on the context menu item first. That would be keeping it simple. Instead, there's an extra step I don't see a need for.

Also, I was looking for a shortened-URL expander add-on with more than 46 downloads. But this was the only one I could find. Something seems wong. But "Short-URL-Expander" is doing the trick for me; thanks.

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2022 --

Four years later, and we're only up to 113 users? People, you don't just expand a URL because you're curious. You expand it so you can remove the long tracking stuff dangling from the end of the actual webpage address before you follow a link.

After a few of my PCs came and went, I couldn't find this add-on anymore, lost, forever lost :(
Today, it hit me... I searched for "Expand URLs," and finally found this one again. Need to use the correct search term.

I was so happy that a reviewer described all the steps for how to use this add-on. I installed it, pulled down a context menu from anywhere on a Twitter page, selected "Expand Shortened URLs" to activate the add-on on that webpage, and then waving the mouse over URLs caused their "real" URLs to be displayed on the status bar.

Then I realized that great review was written by me. I like the review. I don't remember writing the review. Hug myself.

I'm glad Short URL Expander is still available, glad it still works on Windows 7 (I know we're up to 11; leave me alone). Maybe it would slow down the browser if the add-on were automatically activated on every webpage, whether we needed it on every webpage or not. Therefore, it's good that we only activate Short URL Expander on particular webpages when we need it. Maybe that's why we need the extra step. Certainly, I'm not always expanding URLs...