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Comment by pedropaulovc | Hacker News Reader

My go-to HTTP-only endpoint is http://example.com. It should be usable for as long as IANA and the Internet as we know it exists.

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This was mine, too, until I started regularly using a (university) network where the local resolver resolved example.com to 127.0.0.1. I complained, and was told that RFC2606 gave them license to override it to anything they wanted, and that this behavior would not be changed. Doesn't square with my reading of the RFC, but complaining further wasn't going to achieve anything.

Now I use neverssl.com.

I don’t miss the seemingly arbitrary restrictions from university IT admins.

A university I attended blocked all BitTorrent traffic at the protocol level. They theoretically allowed exceptions per their policy but when I applied for some bioinformatics images to be allowed they said they would only allow specific files for a 24 hour window. I applied for a file and got no response. I applied for 1000 files and got no response. Then I gave up.

>Then I gave up.

I'm surprised you didn't set up your own system to work around the stupid restrictions.

Yikes. We use example.com all the time in my intro to network programming class. HTTPS would get in the way of learning the basics, so I'm glad there are some HTTP options out there still.

(Yeah, they could just run a local one-liner web server, but that's not as fun.)

RFC 2606 is a "best current practices" document, which is less stringent than a standard. I'd say it gives them flexibility.

Even updated by RFC 6761, the practices surrounding example.com only go so far as SHOULD and SHOULD NOT.

That said, I think it's a horrible idea to treat example.com differently, but that's just because I can't think of a single reason why you would want to do so. :)

My go-to used to be http://ihave50dollars.com. After it closed down, http://captive.apple.com became my new go-to.

I use neverssl.com

Another one is http://httpforever.com/.

I use http://paulgraham.com

Another plug for http://gfblip.appspot.com/

I guess any site that doesn't auto-upgrade would work, but I have a habit of typing out http:// for this site in particular because it doesn't work over https.

example.com hasn’t been HTTP-only for quite some years now. It may still serve the page over HTTP rather than issuing a redirect to HTTPS, but that ain’t HTTP-only. Nor is there any guarantee of them retaining this deviation from accepted best practice.

That supports https too, so current/future browsers will auto-upgrade to https.

http://captive.apple.com

Interestingly enough this doesn't work for me on certain public wifi networks. I often have to go to a different HTTP-only URL, it's weird.

I've also had situations where _only_ neverssl.com wouldn't load but other http sites would switch to https with an invalid cert error. It's really weird.

Oh cool. I worked on the networking layer of the first Kindle iOS (née iPhoneOS) app and that captive portal stuff was a pain in the ass. I would just walk across the street to Tully’s and use their wifi to get that pop up.

That loads over HTTPS for me, due to Firefox redirecting automatically.

Weird, I can only access it on mobile data but not on my wifi.

this is my go to site for triggering wifi captive portals

Wonderful site http://n-gate.com

That one's my go-to as well. Hope the author's all right.

Glad to see another fan. For others, here's the relevant discussion http://n-gate.com/software/2017/07/12/0/ (needs some refreshes, I think the author made the website somewhat inaccessible on purpose)

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