Why is that the most frightening part? (Genuinely curious) I tried to look up the original intent of the .info domain and found the following on Wikipedia: "Info is the only top-level domain that was explicitly created and chartered for unrestricted use, although various other TLDs resulted in this situation de facto." [0]
Not sure this is still the case, but for years newly-registered .info domains were deeply discounted, i.e. $0.99 or $1.99 for the first year. This made them very attractive for cybercriminals who wanted throwaway domains that weren't needed for more than a year, since they'd be added to spam/malware blacklists within days.
The result was that .info gained a very bad reputation. Since it was so popular among bad actors, but never became very popular for legit sites, for many users the vast majority of times they saw a .info domain it was something nasty.
Exactly - .info and .biz are forever etched in my mind as nothing but scams and spams. I know it has spread beyond that but the original usage was highly tilted toward those.
FWIW, .biz always has seemed unprofessional-sounding to me. Why that was ever created with the intent of being a legitimate domain is beyond me. It cast a shadow over the whole process of creating those new domains at that time, almost as if ICANN was in on all the shadyness from the beginning. It was as if the WHO or UN started adopting warez terminology — you'd start questioning whether they were what you thought they were.
I think you would still end up with "Just put the article title as the URL" out of laziness a bunch too. Or because someone with decision making power doesn't like URLS that seem random.
For REST APIs standard would be /resources?query=something&offset=50&limit=50 etc for list of resources. And single resource.
/resources/:resourceId, so a bit different for APIs as opposed to user facing urls.
While for a single resource when user facing it would be /resource/human-readable-resource-slug.
The trend in browsers is to not display the URL, so who cares what it looks like? Mobile hides the address bar as soon as possible to regain the real estate. A certain desktop browser also received a lot of flack about only displaying the domain name rather than the path/query.
Also, if these are the same UX rules that have brought us worthless cookie screens, I'm not sure I'd put stock in their opinions, but that just me joey not-a-frontend-guy-just-a-user beercan.
The requirement to notify and give an opt out option regarding cookies is intended as a privacy improvement.
Most cookie screens are deliberately designed as bad UX to make it very difficult to properly opt out and very easy to accidentally and permanently opt-in.
> Here the main goal is to get rid of it fast, which more often than not leads to accepting all cookies the site offers.
My fast route out is to close the tab. Same for auto-playing audio, distracting animations/video, and other irritations.
So far I don't think I've missed out on anything of significance that way. There are some sites that are useful enough for me to have spent time clicking tens of things, beyond that it turns out that I can live quite happily without the others.
> Most cookie screens are deliberately designed as bad UX to make it very difficult to properly opt out and very easy to accidentally and permanently opt-in.
This is true, but if I recall correctly it's plainly against the law for them to do this. Websites continue to do it because they're fully aware that enforcement is laughable.
> but if I recall correctly it's plainly against the law for them to do this.
Yes, though technically no. IIRC it is against the letter of the law to make it harder to opt out than to opt in. So this behaviour would be fine if it was at least as painful to opt in.
> Websites continue to do it because they're fully aware that enforcement is laughable.
Well, as someone who has cared about what urls look like[1] since the 90’s, I will rejoice the day I see the last cookie dialog (unless it also is my final day).
[1] It’s a way of communicating with the user. And yes, I often edit the address bar on my phone.
Yes, often if you share resources, the urls are quite long, and pasted into a messaging client, the result looks annoying. For this reason, an internal url shortener is included in several products, like Onlyoffice.
I figured it had something to do with editing, but didn’t know about the “delay” option. So when @samschooler commented, HN Replies[0] contained a link to itself, and that threw me off.
Reminds me of the videos on YouTube that contain their own ID in the content, except you can’t replace your video post upload (unless you’re a major record label…)
Comments have incrementing IDs so without using the delay option you could look at https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments and try to guess what your comment ID will be before posting, but now you're in a race to be the next comment.
I purchased https://m8.fyi. The intention was to create very short urls to put on GIFs/videos, making it easy for people to visit the source (e.g. https://m8.fyi/mon), especially on mobile.
95 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 27.6 ms ] threadI never knew my ISP was filtering and checking my links
You won't believe what this article describes.
Bitcoin millionaire reveals his 1 strange trick in this link.
This article helped me lose 30 lbs using this 1 weird food.
I can’t imagine anyone actually using this, but it’s good fun.
Either trust it or don't. What it actually says doesn't mean a thing.
ShadyURL - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579931 - Sept 2020 (5 comments)
Don't just shorten your URL, make it suspicious and frightening (2010) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16791029 - April 2018 (68 comments)
ShadyURL - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11572679 - April 2016 (2 comments)
Shady URL: Don't just shorten your URL, make it suspicious and frightening. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1134868 - Feb 2010 (21 comments)
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.info
The result was that .info gained a very bad reputation. Since it was so popular among bad actors, but never became very popular for legit sites, for many users the vast majority of times they saw a .info domain it was something nasty.
Specially if my name, email or username is part of the url...
http://www.5z8.info/freeanimalporn.com-start-download_s2e9hb...
http://www.5z8.info/dont-just-drizzle_p1t3un_how2pipebomb
I agree it's not always a mistake for a URL to contain an ID value of some sort. How else would online shops assign a URL to each product they offer?
While for a single resource when user facing it would be /resource/human-readable-resource-slug.
Also, if these are the same UX rules that have brought us worthless cookie screens, I'm not sure I'd put stock in their opinions, but that just me joey not-a-frontend-guy-just-a-user beercan.
Most cookie screens are deliberately designed as bad UX to make it very difficult to properly opt out and very easy to accidentally and permanently opt-in.
Here the main goal is to get rid of it fast, which more often than not leads to accepting all cookies the site offers. And bad cookie UX ensures that.
I would actually prefer to never see a cookie popup and then deal with privacy another way, if that was an option.
My fast route out is to close the tab. Same for auto-playing audio, distracting animations/video, and other irritations.
So far I don't think I've missed out on anything of significance that way. There are some sites that are useful enough for me to have spent time clicking tens of things, beyond that it turns out that I can live quite happily without the others.
This is true, but if I recall correctly it's plainly against the law for them to do this. Websites continue to do it because they're fully aware that enforcement is laughable.
Yes, though technically no. IIRC it is against the letter of the law to make it harder to opt out than to opt in. So this behaviour would be fine if it was at least as painful to opt in.
> Websites continue to do it because they're fully aware that enforcement is laughable.
Pretty much.
[1] It’s a way of communicating with the user. And yes, I often edit the address bar on my phone.
Post comment, get link, "shorten" url, edit comment, boom:
http://www.5z8.info/dogfights_i2z2so_specter-exec
Reminds me of the videos on YouTube that contain their own ID in the content, except you can’t replace your video post upload (unless you’re a major record label…)
[0]: http://www.hnreplies.com/
yikes!
Crappy_wifi_2g
Spam_and_Malware
Most avoid it or don't realise it's a URL!