Starting in 2019 sometime, Windows Outlook began showing the original URL on hovering over a link in an email message.
Before that, it had only shown the rewritten safelinks version, which is very difficult to read and not at all helpful to someone who's trying to check what's behind that link's display text.
This was a vast improvement, and these days it is essential to be able to quckly check links if people are to have a chance of avoiding phishing traps.
It's particularly important for those users (probably the majority) who wouldn't understand the safelinks URL, and might well assume it's safe because it's a microsoft.com link.
Sadly, though, some time within the last few months my Outlook 365 has reverted to showing the unreadable safelinks URL in both the hover popup and the status bar at the bottom of the Outlook window. I currently have Windows Outlook Version 2404 Build 16.0.17531.20152 Click-to-run.
The safelinks service is good, but there will always be malicious links that get past it, and people need to be able to decide whether or not to click on a link by seeing the actual URL it would go to, not simply assume that safelinks will take care of it.
Has anyone else noticed this?
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