Besides, since short URLs tell little about where they actually link to, what can you do if you are a cautious surfer and like to browse a short URL with confidence and security instead of getting a nasty surprise when you get there?

The answer to the above questions is the short URLs restoring tool and here are 8 of such tools recommended.

Untr.im: Its feature is simple: input the short URL and get the original URL.

Realurl：Besides showing the original URL, it can also show the Twitter and Youtube content shared by the short URL.

ExpandMyURL: With support for common browsers such as IE and Firefox, it can restore short URLs from more than 30 shorteners including the common bit.ly, tinyurl.com etc.

SUCURI: A tool provided by Sucuri, apart from restoring the short URL, it also provides Google browsing mode diagnosis for security and diagnosis result from SiteAdvisor, a organization who specializes in estimating website security, so that you can better know the security of a certain URL.

LongURL: With support for restoring short URLs from more than 200 URLs shorteners, it also provides Firefox add-on LongURL Mobile Expander and Greasmonkey script LongURL Mobile Expander which have the same effect. However, it is limited to Firefox browser and is a little slow when analyzing URLs. Developers can write some apps with open API.

Preview URL: It not only provides URL snapshot preview service but also supports short URL restoring. You can get the original URL after inputting the short URL and look up the URL snapshot. In addition, It provides search plugin for Firefox 2 and above or Internet Explorer 7 and above.

Untiny.me: Short URLs from 221 URL shorteners can be restored here. If the URL shortener you used is not common, you can mainly use this one. It has add-ons for multiple platforms (Windows、Mac OS X、Linux/Unix OS) and multiple browsers（IE、Firefox、Opera）. Firefox users can choose to install Untiny Greasemonkey Script or UntinyFox Add-on. It also provides Bookmarklet as well as Gtalk robot(untiny@bot.im）and MSN robot(untiny@hotmail.com . With open API, technicians can develop more application.

LongURLPlease: It supports restoring short URLs from 75 URL shorteners surely including the common ones. Also it provides Firefox add-on Long URL Please that I would like to strongly recommend since the short URLs on the page can be automatically replaced by the original URLs which is very convenient.