Git.io (the "GitHub URL Shortener") was only ever for GitHub-hosted projects to use, which had the effect of further conflating GitHub and Git to an even worse degree. It always struck me as borderline scummy, since GitHub was of course aware of this, but then again they've knowingly benefited from misconceptions about the Git/GitHub relationship for a long time, so it's not out of line with the established MO.

For anyone curious, I found this early blog post announcing it.

https://github.blog/2011-11-10-git-io-github-url-shortener/

It seems like it was built by some Github employees back during the URL shortening phase as just a fun hack project to learn a new database, although a few services implemented it to shorten Github URLs.

I wish there was more background on what/why git.io was a thing, as well as why it's now being discontinued in this announcement. First time hearing of this service.

It turned into a bit of a malware redirect cesspool, and I guess they didn't want to police it.

I ran across the issue about two weeks before this blog post:

https://twitter.com/ryancdotorg/status/1475673195654959108

https://twitter.com/ryancdotorg/status/1475859899099746308

Basically, bad actors were setting up open javascript redirects on github pages, then using git.io to redirect to arbitrary target URLs.

Do people still use URL shorteners…? I would guess the usage has declined in the past 10 years or so.

Wow, git.io was the first product I found a vulnerability and sent a responsible disclosure, more than 10 years ago.

They used to have a nice thank you page, but they got rid of it when they rolled out their bug bounty program.

I wonder if this means git.io short links will be going away, I still use mine on my CV and elsewhere.

I guess that's another Url shortener for Archive Team [1] to backup

[1]:https://wiki.archiveteam.org/

This is a sad day for me. The obscurity of git.io, along with its nested obscurity of the ability to create vanity links, let me grab https://git.io/8. It looks like that'll go away one day, I wonder what will become of the domain itself; it's certainly a six figure property.

Am I the only one who has never heard of nor seen a git.io shortened URL?

I do wish any time there was a service deprecation notice, the service providers would give some detail as to why it's going offline. Lack of use, difficulty to maintain, expense, etc. With that said, I don't think we're owed any explanation, especially for free-to-use services.

Specific to this service, I never personally used it, but I wonder how many project links will break when the service does finally go offline.

If anyone is looking for an alternative URL Shortener you should checkout T.LY

https://t.ly/

Does anyone know where one may find more info about what git.io used to be and why it might have been deprecated?

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I have used this to refer some github links/code/lines in my code/commit, too bad it was fun while it was lasted