I appreciate link shorteners. They make it possible to share links on Twitter and easier to share links on other sites and in emails. But, unfortunately, link shorteners are also frequently used to hide spam or malware.
Fortunately, there are sites that I can use to check and see if a link is safe. Such tools won’t prevent me from seeing spam, but they do help prevent me from infecting my computer with malware. These are the sites I use:
http://sitecheck.sucuri.net/scanner/ (for shortened links)
http://www.urlvoid.com/ (for non-shortened links)
I also use https://www.virustotal.com/ (good for files and links)
Simply paste the link into the appropriate spot on the page. Remember not to open the link in your efforts to paste it into one of the above tools. Here are the steps:
Right click on the link
Click on copy link location
Go to the site where you want to paste the link
Right click on the spot to paste it
Click paste
