Rails UriValidator using the `adressable` gem, https://github.com/sporkmonger/addressable. Related Stackoverflow thread: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7167895/whats-a-good-way-to-validate-links-urls-in-rails-3

uri_validator.rb

require 'addressable/uri'

# Source: http://gist.github.com/bf4/5320847
# Accepts options[:message] and options[:allowed_protocols]
# spec/validators/uri_validator_spec.rb
class UriValidator < ActiveModel::EachValidator

  def validate_each(record, attribute, value)
    uri = parse_uri(value)
    if !uri
      record.errors[attribute] << generic_failure_message
    elsif !allowed_protocols.include?(uri.scheme)
      record.errors[attribute] << "must begin with #{allowed_protocols_humanized}"
    end
  end

private

  def generic_failure_message
    options[:message] || "is an invalid URL"
  end

  def allowed_protocols_humanized
    allowed_protocols.to_sentence(:two_words_connector => ' or ')
  end

  def allowed_protocols
    @allowed_protocols ||= [(options[:allowed_protocols] || ['http', 'https'])].flatten
  end

  def parse_uri(value)
    uri = Addressable::URI.parse(value)
    uri.scheme && uri.host && uri
  rescue URI::InvalidURIError, Addressable::URI::InvalidURIError, TypeError
  end

end

uri_validator_spec.rb

require 'spec_helper'

# Source: http://gist.github.com/bf4/5320847
# spec/validators/uri_validator_spec.rb
describe UriValidator do
  subject do
    Class.new do
      include ActiveModel::Validations
      attr_accessor :url
      validates :url, uri: true
    end.new
  end

  it "should be valid for a valid http url" do
    subject.url = 'http://www.google.com'
    subject.valid?
    subject.errors.full_messages.should == []
  end

  ['http://google', 'http://.com', 'http://ftp://ftp.google.com','http://ssh://google.com'].each do |invalid_url|
    it "#{invalid_url.inspect} is a invalid http url" do
      subject.url = invalid_url
      subject.valid?
      subject.errors.full_messages.should == []
    end
  end

  ['http:/www.google.com','<>hi'].each do |invalid_url|
    it "#{invalid_url.inspect} is an invalid url" do
      subject.url = invalid_url
      subject.valid?
      subject.errors.should have_key(:url)
      subject.errors[:url].should include("is an invalid URL")
    end
  end

  ['www.google.com','google.com'].each do |invalid_url|
    it "#{invalid_url.inspect} is an invalid url" do
      subject.url = invalid_url
      subject.valid?
      subject.errors.should have_key(:url)
      subject.errors[:url].should include("is an invalid URL")
    end
  end

  ['ftp://ftp.google.com','ssh://google.com'].each do |invalid_url|
    it "#{invalid_url.inspect} is an invalid url" do
      subject.url = invalid_url
      subject.valid?
      subject.errors.should have_key(:url)
      subject.errors[:url].should include("must begin with http or https")
    end
  end
end

I think the fifth line (comment) in uri_validator.rb should read

# app/validators/uri_validator.rb

see https://gist.github.com/adamico/2a781d6a4fc2ff577e7f for a Rails 4 with I18n messages

line 9 uri = parse_uri(value) if value or you'll get

NoMethodError:
       undefined method `scheme' for nil:NilClass

Update:
Probably makes more sense to edit parse_uri

def parse_uri(value)
    return unless value
    uri = Addressable::URI.parse(value)
    uri.scheme && uri.host && uri
  rescue URI::InvalidURIError, Addressable::URI::InvalidURIError, TypeError
  end