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Comment by InitialBP | Hacker News Reader

You can't put a hyperlink on a magazine, the tv, or the radio. There are definitely reasonable applications of shortened URLs that apply outside of the normal day-to-day web browsing and applications.

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qrcodes are superior for most printed usage.

It never occured to me to type an url from a radio or TV message and I've never heard anyone spelling an url from a url shortener. All TV/radio broadcasters will rather tell you check for more information in "name of the show" on "domain of the TV/radio channel" or their social media feed. They all have a web presence anyway.

Just wanted to chime in and say that QR Codes are next on the roadmap! Would be fun to learn how to build those

> qrcodes are superior for most printed usage.

Agreed

>It never occurred to me to type an url from a radio or TV message and I've never heard anyone spelling an url from a url shortener.

It happens. How do I know? Every time I've included a url (shortened or not) in a radio/tv ad, I've gotten verified traffic.

> All TV/radio broadcasters will rather tell you check for more information in "name of the show" on "domain of the TV/radio channel" or their social media feed.

This is a best practice for sure, but we all answer to someone, and that someone might not care.

how are they any better than url shorteners? Now I have to download a qr code reader, screen grab it, convert it with said app, and that opens in a browser

Aren't QR code readers built into Android and iOS?

Depends on your OS, manufacturer, and version. In Android, it depends on your camera app (and version). Later Google Camera versions have that, for example, but earlier ones (as of a few years ago) did not.

I'm on PC at least 75% of my time and not on my phone. My phone is mostly for messaging, music, email, and killing time at the airport/airplane/wherever I'm waiting. I get the point about extremely long URLs though, but most of the time that's not an issue unless you're printing it out

apart from the download that happens once, it is just a case of pointing your camera to the code and the browser open by the touching the screen once. Quicker than typing a shortened url.

They are better because you know the exact url you will reach before sending it to your browser.

> qrcodes are superior for most printed usage

Disagree. I can't scan or type a QR code into my computer.

Usuallt you don't deal with printed code when you are in front of a computer and even then it is easy to scan the code with your phone and paste the link on your computer.

I don't? I do most of my reading at home where I have multiple computers in easy reach. I'm also not sure how I'm "easily" copy/pasting between my phone/computer. Is this an iOS/OS X thing? Not everyone is in that eco-system.

Quite a number of apps allow you to easily copy/paste between Android phone and computer:

- BlitzMail, via email - Joplin, via desktop client - Nextcloud/Owncloud - Termux, e.g. via ssh, rsync, ...

Various messenger apps with desktop clients or web interfaces, e.g. Element (matrix.org) or Threema.

I run NextCloud on my computer and laptop, and just checked... no I can't "just copy/paste" from my phone to my computer, or at least if it can the interface is hidden to the point I can't figure it out. I'd have to scan the QR code, have it pop open my browser, select the url, long press to copy, navigate to the NextCloud app, create a text file, paste the url, save the file, open it on my computer, copy the URL, and paste it into my browser.

Admittedly, sending it via e-mail or something would cut out a couple of those steps (still a far cry from "just copy/paste"), and is what I do on those rare occasions I do need to take a URL from my phone to my laptop, but you know what's even easier? Just sitting down at the damn keyboard and typing in whatever.com/coolthing.

Why do I need two devices just to browse your damn website on a decent sized screen or buy your product?

While I agree that textual links and qr codes aren't the best solutions for certain tasks, the workflow you describe appears a bit too complicated. What I do:

- scan a qrcode with a qrcode app (I use a version from f-droid) - choose "share as text" in the app - select the Owncloud app, which asks me what name the file should have

No browser step needed on the phone. In the desktop's browser I navigate to the Owncloud, open the file just saved and click on the link. No cut/copy/paste involved.

What I really do:

- scan the qr code (or the text with an OCR app like TextFairy) - share the snippet with the Joplin app - open the Joplin desktop version and there's the link or text

Or I actually use Blitzmail (share as text from some other app, which counts as the "cut" step of cut/copy/paste), then select the email arriving on the desktop and select the link (i.e. "copy" ) and "paste" it into the browser, where the last step is usually done by the desktop which offers a "open this link" menu for links in texts.

Using the Blitzmail app serves as an easy record keeping device too, when I just send a whole text block containing a link, so I have the context at hand later, if needed.

I am doing that with kdeconnect/gsconnect on linux. The kdeconnect app on android is at least available on f-droid repo and allows you once on the same wifi network, to share clipboard, do mounts, transfer files, get notifications, use the phone as a remote to control the video plan of netflix/hbo/prime, etc.

That's because desktop OS vendors still haven't integrated that feature. They just don't care.

But it's not rocket science. Why the heck my iOS camera has a built in QRcode reader, but why doesn't Firefox or my webcam app on my PC?

It's niche but I always come across it when setting up a new 2FA account and I need to save the code through the mobile app instead of my PC. Such bullshit.

Can't wait to watch people trying to scan QR codes from their TV with the selfie camera on a laptop or even desktop.

Agreed that QR codes are better for mobile devices and sometimes useful on a laptop.

But also QR codes can only be scanned as long as visible.

corp.ltd/specialoffer is easy to remember and type on any device

Unrelated recommendation - 1Password will scan QR codes and can store TOTP 2fa tokens for you. I assume other password managers also have similar features.

Bitly exists because of Twitter and SMS character limits.

I run into similar problems in a corporate context. Being able to quickly tell someone "the provisioning portal is at corp.short/provision" is easily 10x more useful than "go look in the wiki for the link"