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Comment by grose | Hacker News Reader

Remember AOL keywords? They basically had their own private DNS alternative. Every commercial on TV for a website would say "AOL keyword <xyz>!" instead of the actual URL. I guess it was a lot less scary for your average internet user to type in "nick" instead of "http://www.nick.com". I feel like we still kind of have the "URLs are hard" problem. I've noticed a lot of ads in Japan tell the users to search (presumably Google) for a specific phrase, and buying the adwords for that is more or less the modern equivalent of paying for an AOL keyword. Search was really rough back then (although it's gone full circle into shit again I feel), and the URL bar UX wasn't quite figured out yet. Will users be able to adapt to wacky new TLDs or will we be stuck with .com forever because it's recognizable as a domain name? Do people still type "www."? Is the app store the modern equivalent of AOL channels? Sometimes I wonder if we're stuck in an infinite cycle of reinventing AOL.

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> Do people still type "www."?

From my experience, yes.

I am getting merried next month - we have a wedding website via "with joy", which had a URL a bit too long to fit on our wedding invites, so I set up a redirect of "wedding.surname.tld" - the amount of people who messaged us saying the website didn't work, and it turns out they were putting "www." beforehand was staggering (until I added that as a redirect too).

If you are ever in a tech support role and have to see how people use computers, it’s actually horrific.

I think anyone working UX should spend 3-6 months minimum in tech support every couple of years. I imagine the value of those learnings would vastly outweigh any useability studies or testing.

Righteous conclusion: make computers harder to scare the normies off.

If it means I get my ports and physical buttons back, I'm all for it!

I have an email that is firstname@lastname.tld when I tell it to people, or tech support they always first assume I’m an idiot and really meant to say firstlast@gmail.com

The tld isn’t com there’s no g in the entire address, but people have a hard time understanding that such a thing is a real email address. I do happen to have that gmail address also, but my name is uncommon and not the easiest to spell, so as long as they get my last name and tld right I’ll get the email if they send it to my vanity domain.

My email is first @ la.st (with the TLD being the last three letters of my last name).

People really struggle with this.

Websites sometimes reject it on principle that the TLD obviously can't exist.

I'm a huge nerd for TLDs and that's is just awesome. My last name is too obscure to have something that cool but it's so neat to have that as an option.

I got a domain with my first name and my wife’s first name like jimja.ne, but she was not a fan of it at all. I ended up getting jimjane.org instead. Much easier for people to use.

I have an email of the format:

Foren@meSurna.me

Except it's much shorter (10 chars total). I basically only use it on my resume now, as people that work in tech are the only ones recognize it as a valid email address.

I wanted something like, the ccTLD was available for it, but I couldn’t find a registrar to buy it from, when it finally became available, it appears the country is trying to sell the domain at a premium bec it’s short (3 letters) so I’m sad.

I am starting to move away from gmail to proton and I had someone ask me if proton.me was a personal domain name. I wish! People expect gmail or other common domains and don't know what to do if you give them something other than that.

Agreed. I'm confused why tech geeks would expect normies to understand this stuff. It's like, "I dropped a Ferrari engine into my Toyoto Corolla, and when I brought it to the Toyota dealer, the mechanic was confused--It's so wierd."

I have a catchall for my domain set up, and whenever I give a contact email to any organization, I offer theirdomain.com@mydomain.com. The amount of regular pushback I get from that (or people thinking I work at theirdomain.com, or that I am some kind of idiot) is insane.

I’ve started using my first name followed by a few letters related to the domain, so jimhn@example.com instead of hackernews@example.com, for exactly this reason. It’s easier to explain to a customer support rep if it’s a more “normal” email.

Interesting. I get a ton of others' email at firstlast@gmail.com and never thought of that as an explanation for some of it.

(The majority of it comes from people who forgot they had a middle initial in their email address.)

I have the same and it's true, some people try tacking @gmail.com at the end.

Also, all internet addresses have to start with 'www', everybody knows that. Otherwise the Internet would be confused and think it was an email address.

> I’ll get the email if they send it to my vanity domain.

Nothing vain about it; it's just a domain name being used as intended.

In Kiwi browser (which after my tests seems to be the best Android browser: chome but with good / old way to scroll cards + ublock) you can make a personalized tab with links to pages. When you try to add a new page it auto suggests http adress - not httpS. So dont blame it always on users :)

In cases like this I'd just make a QR code of the url

Then your tech support simply changes to guiding people in the use of QR codes.

Those numbers have to be very low now that we are post 2020.

Really? I've been in the tech world for over a decade but think I've personally scanned only a single QR code in the wild.

For people outside our bubble they basically don't exist, though I'll admit this is probably quite location dependant.

In the UK during lockdown they became quite common as a way of ordering food to your table in a restaurant or pub. I think that's the only time I use them though.

I’m sitting here eating a chicken katsu curry in London and each seat at the bar has a QR code to scan and see the menu.

For the past 3 years a lot of restaurants switched to QR based menus for obvious reasons. So I’d wager to say that anyone that went out to eat in the last 3 years has interacted with at least a handful of QR scans :)

I’ve also seen hotels adopt “scan this code to get our WI-FI details”. Which is a pretty seamless experience and great

Oh I SEE qr codes everywhere. But I never see anybody using them. People do, obviously, but most of my friends and family never have.

For 3 years, when confronted with such a scenario, the people in my life who dislike QR codes have theatrically said something like "what are these stupid computer squares! I want a paper menu damn it!" Whereupon the staff and I share a knowing look, everyone rolls their eyes, and a paper menu is brought forth.

I always ask for a paper menu. Why should I trust them enough to visit an unknown URL on my personal device? Why should they trust the 3rd party service they're likely using to not be malicious? Why should I even be arsed to pull my phone out of my pocket? Plus, paper menus are way easier to see and navigate. Of course, most people aren't "theatrical about it", but I suppose there are a few that are.

Very true and valid points! I'm just not that security conscious with my mobile device I guess. I go to all sorts of unknown URLs on this thing all the time. It's practically the only thing I do with this thing.

To be clear, the eye rolling is about the theatricality of my family members' behavior rather than the request for a paper menu. I would also add to the benefits of the paper menus that it's much more socially cohesive than everyone at the table sitting around staring at their phones, even if there's a common reason to do so.

FWIW - I wouldn't call them "stupid computer squares", but I would be even more snarky and sarcastic and say "Oh... I thought I visited a restaurant, not fast food / door dash / uber eats. Am I in the wrong place? So sorry!" :P

Seriously - if I want food efficiently and robotically, there are many ways to obtain that. If I'm going to a restaurant with my friends, it's to pay too much money for a modicum of a social experience :P.

I don't want to spend first 5 minutes trying to get QR code to work, then next 10 minutes trying to read a menu on 5" screen (usually with poor scrolling and ads and whatnot, sometimes they make me install an app I'll never use again, etc), then another 5 min trying to order on a phone. I do not want to pay for anti-social experience. I DEFINITELY don't want my kids to try to figure out their food on my phone :D

I may be a cranky old grouch, and you're welcome to roll your eyes at me, but gimme a 20" menu rather than a poorly made bespoke 5" app :-/

I've even been to a few restaurants where they go a step further. Each table's QR code is unique and you can see the current tab for the table. You can then split and pay the check straight from that QR code. Pretty nice.

Heh. I just experienced that when I paid at the restaurant above! It was powered by Sunday https://sundayapp.com/en-gb/

They became popular in LA during 'Rona. They're still around in a lot of places but definitely less. We like real menus.

I am an it professional.

I've used qr codes maybe... 6 times, ever?

With probably 50% success rate before I give up.

I know for a fact that literally nobody else in my in law family of middle class Canadians has ever used a single one.

Anecdata of course, but if we're sharing assumptions... :-)

If you were out at all during / after Covid, restaurant menus were all QR codes on tables around me.

They are on posters all over. Commonly used for sign-ups and event entrance. It’s a mid assumption to think they are more popular in tech circles, I actually think the reverse is true.

There's a reason why restaurants quickly returned to physical menus: most of their customers hated QR code menus and the restaurant business is extremely competitive so you have to be responsive to what customers want to stay in business.

It's only in markets that lack competition that a company can do unpopular changes that reduce its costs without losing customers. For example, stadiums all went cashless "for your safety" and then never brought cash back. Which they can do for the same reason they can charge $5 or more for a bottle of water: they're basically a monopoly with a large captive audience.

One issue with QR codes in restaurants is that they force everyone to get on their phones which is sometimes exactly what you are trying to avoid by going out in the first place

Or your phone can die...

I went to a place recently where you ordered on your phone and it kept your tab open until you closed it... I had to race against my phone dying to pay.

As I mentioned in another comment:

I see QR codes everywhere too. But I never see them used , and nobody in my circle uses them. And the only times I hear about them is when people complain about them in Restaurants etc.

May very well be different in other locations (I'm in small town in Canada, just outside of Toronto, traveling to Ottawa frequently). I would guess without any evidence that downtown NY or Boston may see more use :).

That sounds almost impossible to me. I feel like half of everything I purchase which has a manual doesn't ship with a physical manual, but instead comes with a printed QR code to "get instructions". If it's a gadget that comes with an App, there will be a QR code linking to that app. I know multiple bars/ restaurants which won't send waiters to your table but expect you to scan the QR code on the table and order with your phone.

But for the qr-code manuals, how often do you refer to them? I see those regularly too, but pretty much never use them.

Similarly for restaurants - in my area, while there temporarily were big a few years ago - I don't really see any place that uses them now. The exception is when I travel to other cities.

The last monitor I bought had a QR code to scan for quick start instructions. The QR code went to the wrong monitor! After that I searched for mention of that in existing reviews and only found one person in Amazon who mentioned it. People didn't really read manuals before and I don't think they're scanning QR code manuals nowadays.

I'm the same. I've been in IT in one form or another 30+ years and have actually scanned a QR code maybe as many times as you have, probably less. I watched my usually brilliant wife spend 10 minutes trying to figure out how to scan a QR code with her Android before she gave up and just typed in the URL.

The number 1 reason I don't bother is that, in my experience, they rarely work.

We've started doing nothing but QR for links and portals. People on the whole don't type in URLs, but they always have a smartphone or tablet. Designing for mobile is the only way to easily allow a room full of people to actually visit a page, and until laptops have cameras that can face backwards, there's not a lot of competition.

Tech changes decently quickly so sometimes it is easy to just stick with what you know. Today I was standing in my driveway trying to open the garage door with my phone. After about a min of going thru random menus and whatever I said 'whatever' and just went thru the house and pushed the button. I will figure it out when I am not in a rush. Also you hand me a QR code I am going to be a little annoyed but also grateful at the same time. The annoying part is getting out the app to do it. The grateful part is not having to type something like that into the tiny interfaces we like to use for phones.

Also time to share one of my favorite shortcuts I use all the time. ctrl enter while in the title bar will add https://www. and the .com bit on the end of any string. Works in firefox and chrome.

On iPhones you swipe right from the Lock Screen. Android has a shortcut to double tap the power button.

I don’t know if I ever go searching for an app to open a QR code.

Think both of those actions are open camera app?

And then you point the camera app at the QR code, and then click the link that appears over the QR code. Neither Apple nor Android require a QR code reader app.

Open camera and point here. Done.

Until you realize grandma has a spam version of camera she installed that doesn't support QR codes

Similar thing happened to us. I had the www redirect but used a .wedding TLD. On the invites I even put the entire “http://<domain>.wedding/“ hoping it’d be clear. I’d say a majority of people didn’t recognize that it was a web address and assumed we didn’t have a website.

To be fair “.com” would probably have convinced more of them.

“.wedding” is obviously some cheeky made up thing…

My earliest domain was registered in '99 and I'd still not really believe "dot wedding" - what's next, "dot muffin"?

There are some pretty out-there ones now. No .muffin yet, but its a lot more plausible now than it was 5 years ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_dom...

not https?

having www. is a nice quixk way of saying "this is a website address" without having to say it.

I suppose that could also be an indication that they haven't typed in a URL in a very long time.

A shocking (to me) number of people I work with don't know the URLs of websites they visit every day or that they can go directly to a site by typing in the address in "the search bar". And I mean people who use their computers for a living, not the "smartphone generation" or strangers to the web.

Indeed.

Me: Hey checkout <website>.com

Them: type <website> without .com in address bar, click on search results link that may or may not be correct.

That's not a terrible approach for some things. If I get a call from my bank telling me to login to my-bank.us or something to deal with a pressing issue, it may well be a phishing attempt, and it's generally a safer approach to google my bank and get to the login page that way instead of using the domain a caller tells you to.

It's possible to create your own AOL keywords in firefox by setting the `keyword` field in `Manage Bookmarks`. Bookmark hackernews, set the keyword to `hn`, then all you have to do in the address bar is `hn<enter>` and you're here.

well this changes things. Thanks for the tip!

If you replace part of the URL with %s then you can use a keyword? as part of the URL.

The New York Times still has their list of AOL Keywords here!

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/info/help/aol-ke...

Now it's instagram usernames (and the app stores, as you pointed out).

We gave people the concept of portable identity with domain names, and they rejected it for another walled garden.

Instagram usernames are much easier to reason about if you don't understand/care about the differences between domains, subdomains, tlds, protocols etc.

We gave people a messy solution that assumed they would care about implementation details.

I don’t know if domain names is really that much better a solution—between the messiness of protocols, subdomains, and TLDs (how many kids in school went to whitehouse.com instead of whitehouse.gov back when the former was a porn site?), they can also expire and be replaced with a domain showing very different content. Lidl recently had to recall some kids snacks because the URL was not showing what they wanted it to.

URLs don’t have spell check. I usually just Google most of the time to make sure I’m not getting phished by a site one character off.

Considering the level of computer knowledge and sophistication of most 90s users, this was a genius idea. The fact that it also served as a form of marketing and soft lock-in was also not overlooked

> I've noticed a lot of ads in Japan tell the users to search (presumably Google) for a specific phrase, and buying the adwords for that is more or less the modern equivalent of paying for an AOL keyword.

There was a CBC News article within the last while that linked to an earlier article. However, the hyperlink pointed to a Google query for “blah blah topic cbc article”.

It was interesting to see that journalists within large organizations are hacking together their own resources instead of relying on internal tools (likely because they don’t exist).

I always assumed that ads that told people to search for the product/company were to raise their search ranking (due to relevancy?). But I’ve got no idea if that would actually make a difference or not, or if it is just so people don’t have to type a URL as you said.

It was the latter. AOL users didn’t even know what URLs were.

The article didn’t have a screen shot of how AOL tacked the entire Internet Internet onto their glorified BBS as a button on their toolbar. Seriously.

The heyday of AOL keywords was before SEO or search engine relevancy was anything that any company cared about. Search engines existed, but this was mostly pre-Google and they were not great. A lot of discovery happened in other ways - the AOL keyword scheme was basically their attempt to tie web discovery to their products so people who left AOL wouldn't know what to do.

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I’m talking about modern ads that you see now. They will often say ‘search for Hilton hotels’ or whatever, rather than the domain. I thought that was to help SEO

> AOL keyword <xyz>!

And we've gone full circle. We have the same today, just in a form of a #tag.

AOL keywords were shortcuts to URLs like bit.ly right?

They could be, but often they launched something on-platform in AOL's walled garden that could not be accessed by a web browser. Basically, windows inside of the AOL application. Screenshots would explain better than I can but I'm having trouble finding a good one. Maybe: https://i.insider.com/53f27f8069bedd317d1c5fb5?width=1200

Not all the time. Many keywords were a shortcut into a curated multimedia portal inside AOL. It could be equivalent to a web site for a brand, but could also be a more general area inside AOL with related articles, chat rooms, etc on that topic. More like opening a magazine than running a web search or typing a URL.

Didn't most AOL keywords redirect to AOLs content only hosted on AOL? I don't remember what their "sites" were called, but I used to use keywords to navigate to those areas. I don't really remember using them at all to get to actual websites. I only had AOL for two years before we got a cable modem in late 1998 though, maybe that was more common in the later years when the web started picking up.

> I feel like we still kind of have the "URLs are hard" problem.

QR codes.

Ah, that's true. Even Google search has used this sort of pattern to try and become a "soft walled garden". Things like widgets that look like they might take you to Wikipedia, but land on Google pages instead.

Now it is search for XYZ and/or a picture of a rounded box with XYZ and a magnifying glass. Of course search === Google in this context.

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