Up until now I have been a big fan of tinyurl, which takes a really long URL from anywhere and converts it into a short and neat version that can be pasted into a text document or email. This is good because it means the link won’t split over lines and is less likely therefore to appear to be broken.
Where Spedr wins is that it is an extension to Firefox and gives you the exact same functionality in your URL bar by clicking a small ‘lightening bolt’ icon. This saves so much time it’s ridiculous! Tinyurl does provide a link to add to your toolbars in other browsers, which is alright, but takes you to the tinyurl.com page.
If you have not yet seen Spedr, check here: