You shouldn't use URL Shorteners, Forbes says. They are aware that attackers could guess (or brute-force) your Short Links and - if you shorten Google Drive or Dropbox Links - gain access to your files.
Another problem is the fact that URL Shorteners are a common target for Hackers. Remember when back in 2009 cli.gs, one of the top URL Shorteners at this time, got hacked? That was horrible! All short-Links suddenly redirect to a scam website!
Also, most URL Shorteners track everything - starting from where on earth you are to which website you visited before and how many short-Links you've already visited this week/month/year/... . This is, in fact, bad for all users.
The last point is, that there are hundreds of URL Shorteners out there on the Web. But most of them have random names like x2c.en (x2c.en is not a real Website, it's just an example 😉), with no deeper sense. Be honest: would you click on a link starting with x2c.en/...? No. Because it doesn't sound trustworthy. It just sounds like a scam website.
But URL Shorteners are useful. You can use them everywhere: on social media, in presentations, in print media and you can easily remember them. That's why we decided to create a URL Shortener which fixes all those problems - shrtco.de (~ShortCode). First of all, we don't track short-Link visitors - really, we don't track anything. Second, Hackers can't change the short-Link targets because our server checks all short-Links if the target is still the same - each and every day. Third, if you want to shorten a Link to a document or other personal data, you can easily protect your short-Link with a password. And last of all, the name shrtco.de sounds nice (and trustworthy).
Have fun shortening your Links! 😄