PSA: Truncating the displayed URL of links can hide the fact that they may be direct file download links. Phones don't have a hover functionality so you may find yourself downloading a file you didn't intend to. This just happened to me a few minutes ago.
@Bliss
I caught it and cancelled mid-download. Just a stray touch while scrolling. I'm sure the person who posted it was not posting anything malicious, but if someone was...
users should always add what the url is like (pdf url) etc << i am one user who does
Tip:
you can share the URL to google keep long press tap share < a wee pop-up box appears showing the full URL with a "save" if i wanna save it to keep or just cancel by tapping anywhere outside the pop-up
i use a PWA for CoSo but that should also work in app on Android anyway
Agree. Tried on my iPhone. The hover-hold lets me copy? But pasting into Notes brings up a link preview like here. Hmm…
@amarand
Most people wouldn't go through those extra steps though. They're just going to tap on the link, and because it's truncated they're not going to see that it ends in a file extension.
The recent news about new TLDs that are identical to common file extensions further muddies the waters.
I’d love to see a cross-platform opt-in CoSo safety feature that allows link previews to be disabled, and full links to always be displayed. Maybe an additional opt-in feature could be “are you sure?” prompt.
Update: on my iPhone, I was able to take a long link and multitask paste it into a text editor, and was able to fully view the link with no previews. I’m sure there’s an easier way, especially on Android.
@amarand
Actually in the CoSo Android app, there is no long press context functionality on links.
In most other places, it works similar to iPhone.
amazing the number of people who never got rick rolled these days and have no concept of checking links
@Kinnison
But there's not an easy way to check links on your phone. I was just scrolling a timeline here and suddenly found myself downloading a PDF file I never intended to.
If I see a truncated link, I use https://wheregoes.com to trace the link.
@bbbourq
Cool; I've not seen this before.
@voltronic
I try to be careful but that does happen even to the saviest of us. Hope all is ok.