Feedly kills URL shortener to improve speed, security, and privacy

Back in January feedly -- the RSS reader that tried to fill the gap left by the death of Google Reader -- introduced a URL shortener. At the time it was billed as a "captur[ing] analytics about how people are engaging with the content you are sharing". Ten months later, the news service realized that this could be seen as being overly intrusive and has killed the tool.

The original blog post that heralded the launch of feedly.com/e has been updated to reflect the fact that the shortener is no more. "With hindsight this was a bad idea. We focused too much on feedly's growth versus doing what is right for users and for the Web. Sorry".

The change in direction comes as part of an update to feedly's web and mobile apps. A new blog post goes into a little more detail about the reasons for the change of heart. The company explains that the move is important for transparency, making it clear to users what they are going to see when they click a link.

It is the right thing to do for users, because people who receive those links in emails, SMSs and social media posts will be able to tell by looking at the URL where it leads and who created the content.

This is a move that will almost certainly be well-received by not only advocates of privacy, but also the security-conscious. However, if the boost to security and privacy are not enough, feedly sweetens things even further by pointing out that the move will "shave a few hundred milliseconds from the experience of loading the links".

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