Thanks to Twitter and Facebook, shortened Web addresses, also called shortened URLs, are everywhere. They're good for saving space in posts, but bad for security.

Hackers and scammers love to hide malicious downloads and websites behind these generic URLs and say they're something else. You won't even know where you're going until you click.

With the extensions Long URL Please on Firefox and Long URL on Chrome, you will never have to see a shortened URL ever again. You’ll only see the underlying link so you know where you're going before you click.

Cost: Free

Links:

Firefox: addons.mozilla.org 

Chrome: chrome.google.com 

Safari: code.google.com

System: Windows, OS X