Android: URL shorteners are a dime a dozen, but Bitly stands out with a ton of custom features, including the ability to see how well your shortened links are doing. Now, you can manage all that information from your phone.

It's hard to say when exactly URLs reached the "too long" point, requiring us to adopt services such as bit.ly to make them more compact. What we do know is that resolving the actual addresses these tiny links point to does add a delay to the process of enjoying the web, especially on Android. Fortunately, there is a solution.

Shortened links are everywhere, but you never really know where they might lead you. If you aren't sure whether to open one, URL Uncover can keep you safe.

For quite a while, Google has been using its own goo.gl shortener to compress long links. No more; as of today, the big G is using a different shortener, g.co, for its own link-shortening needs.

Web app Google Plus Nick takes that long, awkward Google+ profile URL and turns it into a short, easy to remember gplus.to/username address.

While all URL shorteners intend to simplify the process of sharing links without hassle, Rdd.me, a new URL shortener from the creators of distraction-free tool Readability, is special in that it simplifies the process of sharing content.

A friend asks you for examples of a certain kind of music. Your boss asks for the best options for a hardware purchase. Link shortening service bit.ly now offers a way to collect links in smart, gallery-style fashion for just such occasions.

newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http://www.youtube.com/v/1pASpCy6zsc&hl=en&fs=1&hd=1","customParams": ,"width":570,"height":360,"ratio":0.615,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube","wrap":true,"agegate":false} );

Windows: FluffyApp is a Windows wrapper for previously reviewed and Mac-only CloudApp and brings the same drag-and-drop file, URL and screenshot sharing to Windows computers.

Previously relegated to the Google Toolbar and Feedburner, Google URL Shortener finally has a web site of its own.

If you need to pass on a long link and need to assure those who click know it's safe, security firm McAfee provides a URL shortener that automatically scans the intended destination before letting users click through to it.

While the URL shortening market definitely seems a little saturated, there's still room for innovation. Fur.ly is a URL shortening service that bundles multiple URLs together for easy sharing.

Plenty of sites offer a quick IP address check, disposable email, URL shortening, image uploading and quick text saving. 1dl.us offers all of them on one page for your bookmarking convenience.

If you're looking for a simple way to share snippets of text and file attachments with nothing more than a shortened URL, Write.fm — from the creators of Task.fm — is a notepad with built-in file sharing.

Sending someone a Google Maps URL can be a pain, because they tend to be very long. To remedy this, Google has integrated their previously mentioned goo.gl URL shortening service into Google Maps, so you can shorten links right from the map.

Twitter announced its new approach to URLs today, explaining that they will wrap all links that spill over the character limit in their very own, new t.co shortener. What's really awesome about the new shortener, though, is that instead of showing a cryptic short link, it will show part of the original link so you know where you're headed (thus preventing spammers and phishing attacks).

You'll never want for a URL shortener with the abundance of them online, but why settle for just shortening the link when you can run a security scan on it in the process? Saf.li checks your links to keep them virus free.

There are loads of extensions and bookmarklets that create shortened links from long URLs, but the bit.ly and j.mp services don't need them. Add them with a slash before the URL in your address bar, and you're good to go.

Trick.ly is a clever URL shortener that adds a small layer of privacy to your shared links by setting up a question-and-answer challenge system that needs to be correctly answered before the link redirects.

If you've found yourself wanting to share songs as easily and compactly as you share shortened URLs, Tinysong is a music search engine that combs the Grooveshark library and generates tiny URLs for easy sharing.