Over-engineered URLs vs. A Little Script

One of the local courier services where I live will send you this helpful notification SMS with a tracking URL whenever they pick up a parcel for you. It is useful. At least compared to the hundreds of spam text messages we get here daily.

The tracking URL is masked, much like a shortened URL, but not exactly short. The URL will redirect you to the real tracking URL only if you are not accessing it from a mobile device.

I will try not to make this sound like a rant. But these over-engineered URLs make me 🤮.

What does it do when you access it from a mobile device? Send you to the Google Play Store or App Store, of course.

Am I wrong to find it infuriating?

I took matters into my own hands and wrote a Bash script to figure out the real tracking URL.

1
2
3
4

#!/bin/bash

curl -s -I -o /dev/null -w '%header{location}' $1
echo

Curl command breakdown:

• -s: Silent
• -I: HEAD-only request
• -o /dev/null: Discard output
• -w %header{location}: Output the value of the location header to stdout
• $1: The first argument passed to this script

Since curl here will not print a new line at the end, the echo pushes the next prompt to a new line.

With a terminal emulator like Termux on my phone, I can quickly run a masked tracking URL through this script to figure out the real tracking URL.

$ ./unmaskurl.sh {MaskedURL}
{TrackingURL}

This post is 56th of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. Want to get involved? Find out more at 100daystooffload.com.