llIlI.lI: a URL shortener using only I/l to encode domains

Re:llIlI.lI: a URL shortener using only I/l to encode domains by fredthedeadhead on Sunday May 12, 2024 @04:48AM (#40333070)

So, I think this hilarious, but link shorteners have to be stable, right? What happens when link shorteners go offline? Is there a way of decoding shortened links without the server?

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Re:llIlI.lI: a URL shortener using only I/l to encode domains by danpalmer on Sunday May 12, 2024 @04:52AM (#40333083)

Link shorteners always depend on the server. They just put the link in a database and map it to some shorter code.

You could have just an encoding and compression scheme, with no storage, but it wouldn’t be able to shorten the urls by much in most cases.

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Re:llIlI.lI: a URL shortener using only I/l to encode domains by beardyw on Sunday May 12, 2024 @05:52AM (#40333262)

Thinking about it that is absolutely possible, but only for you personally. A site could store your destination as local storage and translate through a service worker (which runs even if the site is offline). Half a page of JS would do it. Not sure if it is useful though?

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Re:llIlI.lI: a URL shortener using only I/l to encode domains by lelag on Sunday May 12, 2024 @04:55AM (#40333096)

All link shorteners, even those that use a readable URL, keep the target URL in a database. It's not possible to decode any of them without the service being available.

The novelty here is that the service deliberately makes itself unusable for comedic effect

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Re:llIlI.lI: a URL shortener using only I/l to encode domains by crtasm on Sunday May 12, 2024 @09:17AM (#40334205)

There's at the very least one group working to archive them: https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/URLTeam

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Re:llIlI.lI: a URL shortener using only I/l to encode domains by rsync on Sunday May 12, 2024 @01:33PM (#40336089)

"So, I think this hilarious, but link shorteners have to be stable, right?"

Yes, a link shortener does need to be stable but luckily they are extremely simple to operate.

You should be able to run a very popular link shortener on a leftover 1U with very low associated bandwidth and power costs. It's not unrealistic for a person, or group, to commit to this indefinitely.

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