I'd expect the true link to be shown in the status bar. Perhaps yours isn't enabled?

There are many Firefox add-ons for creating shortened URLs, and some of them also display the underlying URL for some providers, but I don't see any that work in TB. I suppose you could save a message as an HTML file, open it in Firefox, and view the link with one of the add-ons, but that is a cumbersome approach.

Zenos said

I'd expect the true link to be shown in the status bar. Perhaps yours isn't enabled?

The link is shown in the status bar but only the original condensed link (like Goo.gl or Bit.ly...). What I was interested in was something that would reveal the expanded link so I could make a better guess whether it was malicious or not.

sfhowes said

There are many Firefox add-ons for creating shortened URLs, and some of them also display the underlying URL for some providers, but I don't see any that work in TB. I suppose you could save a message as an HTML file, open it in Firefox, and view the link with one of the add-ons, but that is a cumbersome approach.

Yes, first thing I did was review available add-ons in Thunderbird and didn't find anything applicable.

Sorry, yes I'd missed that. I'm used to checking the full URL of a link, or the actual email address, usually using the status bar, in both Thunderbird and Firefox. But yes, in this case where it is deliberately obfuscated, you do need an active de-scrambler.

I don't like bit.ly and other such services and I refuse to use them myself. I'm rather sad that Mozilla folk seem so keen on them that they have developed their own variant. e.g. http://mzl.la/1ApHkv8 points to https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/keyboard-shortcuts

I mostly use Google URL shortener, myself but have to protect myself from third party URLs. This was more of a call to developers with an idea for a new add-on. Thank you for your replies ( :- )