search

thedevs-network / kutt

Free Modern URL Shortener.
https://kutt.it
MIT License
8.47k stars 1.11k forks source link

Feature request: word based URLs #138

Closed DonaldTsang closed 5 years ago

DonaldTsang commented 5 years ago

Something similar to https://noun.ly except it can use any wordlist, and it can be a chain of N words from the list of M words. The wordlists can be from Bitcoin BIP39, Diceware tables or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PGP_word_list

poeti8 commented 5 years ago

I don't see how is this useful?

DonaldTsang commented 5 years ago

@poeti8 memorability would be useful, have you ever heard of correct horse battery staple or other mnemonic-based password generators? Having a memorable URL would be great. Exmaple 1: https://xkcd.com/936/ Example 2: http://worrydream.com/tripphrase/

poeti8 commented 5 years ago

But it would unnecessary take meaningful names where users can use them to shorten links that are actually related to that word. For example kutt.it/Apollo should redirect to a link that is related to Apollo.

DonaldTsang commented 5 years ago

@poeti8 It would be great if a URL shortening service that delegates random URLs did it in a way that is memorable instead of badly designed, especially ones that uses both uppercase and lower case. The chosen random words should be those that are understood to be part of "basic English".

trgwii commented 5 years ago

For me it's much easier to remember a 6-character random string than a 4-word mnemonic device

DonaldTsang commented 5 years ago

@trgwii depends from person to person, but XKCD's "correct horse battery staple" is a classic with larger set of entropy, since one word has an entropy of 10-12 bits, every word would be equal to 1.5-2 base64 characters

trgwii commented 5 years ago

And larger entropy is worse for a url SHORTENER

DonaldTsang commented 5 years ago

@trgwii ease of memorability is a good price for character count, but remembering a single word is worth 2 base64 characters (with uppercase AND lowercase). If a URL requires 8 base64 characters that is only 4 words. With base32, the gain is even more as 2 words would be 5 base32 characters.

trgwii commented 5 years ago

We use a much higher base tho, so the gain is much lower, and I don't agree, I don't think it's a good price

DonaldTsang commented 5 years ago

@trgwii have you actually seen how https://noun.ly works?

trgwii commented 5 years ago

Yep, and it seems useless

DonaldTsang commented 5 years ago

@trgwii how so, if it has been demonstrated to be useful for with passwords, BIP39 and what3words? If you use a much higher base then upper case and lower case, confusion would occur. If you use only lower case then the amount of entropy is lower, such that using words would be a good tradeoff for increasing memorability.

Also @poeti8 what do think about this idea, and the conversation surrounding it? The Apollo idea is useful, but it can be generalized to apply to many other websites that does not need a specific name.