TimLeland

Ya I didn't think Android would be more confusing and require more steps than Apple. Getting 12 testers is a really strange requirement. My only guess is it's to prevent malicious apps.

Are you able to get this site to rank?

How easy is it to switch from other email providers?

Unfortunately I would bet OpenClaw will be on the list soon

Unfortunately I would bet OpenClaw is going to be on the list soon

How much of the downtime is due to all the AI code being committed?

It seems they fixed the biggest issue Ive had where you start typing then it erases the content once the page fully loads

Take a look at the page title. I guess he didn't follow his own rules for this 100-line HTML file

<title> <h1>Rob Pike's 5 Rules of Programming</h1> </title>

I feel like this is a case where they are adding features nobody asked for. Just stick to what you are good at, and please dont bloat the app.

Who else has been using free prime shipping for the past 15 years :)

Looks neat — just a heads up, be prepared for malicious users to find the service and immediately start using it for harmful redirects. I ran into this pretty early on when I launched T.LY, so it’s something worth thinking about from the start.

I ended up building an entire service to detect these URLs as soon as possible, protecting the service. Happy to give you some tips, just reach out.

Cloudflare offers a lot for free. I think they are able to cover the free users from how much they charge enterprise customers.

What happens when Google's URL Shortener stops working on August 25th? Billions of links all around the internet break. It should be interesting.

Billions of links breaking is a good thing?

Thanks! How do you measure it? :)

Google runs on a scale much larger than most companies think. To run and operate Goo gl, they didn't see enough value even though millions of people used it.

Often times when Google shutdowns a product, it still has millions of users which is great for smaller businesses to step in and grow. That is what I was able to do creating T.LY around the same time Google announced the shutdown.

Do you really think Google is going away anytime soon? Google and its ads are the backbone of much of the free internet. Without ads, we’d likely see most sites with paywalls. On the other hand, AI services have a chance to hurt Google if they don't catch up.

What do you think will happen when billions of links stop redirecting?

Do you think we still need URL shorteners in 2025?

The same thing happened to me with one of the domains I use for T.LY URL Shortener, twtr.to. It was disabled without any prior warning, and I only found out when it suddenly stopped working. I contacted the registrar, and I’m currently waiting to hear back from them. It’s frustrating how a single decision like this can disrupt an entire business operation without notice or explanation.

What about making your URLs super short??

https://t.ly/

I can really relate to this article! I created T.LY URL Shortener in 2018, and I've encountered all these issues and more! I found out the hard way when my hosting company shut down my servers for malicious content about a week into launching the site. Malicious actors will go to all sorts of lengths to achieve their goals.

Be careful relying on Stripe to prevent these users. Next they will start using stolen credit cards to create accounts then you will face disputes. If you get too many, Stripe will prevent you from processing payments.

About a year ago, I launched a service called Link Shield. It's an API that returns risk scores (0-100) on URLs. It uses AI and other services to score if a URL is malicious. Check it out and let me know if you would be interested in trying it linkshieldapi.com/

I actually had this idea a few days ago. Great work!

If you would like to review the source code: https://robwu.nl/crxviewer/?crx=https%3A%2F%2Fchrome.google....

I wish Google Photos UI was better but it still seems to be the best solution. Hosting something like this seems like it would cost more time/money/frustration than its worth.

On the other hand, I always think its awesome to see self hosted solutions! It helps to create competition.

Very cool could you share what features people wanted from QR codes? I'm looking into ways to improve https://t.ly/qr-code-generator

Yup and many more not mentioned in the post. I wrote this article so in the future it would be easier to look back on everything I have worked on.

Yes! Failure is the stepping stone to success. Hitting a homerun on your first attempt is like winning the lottery. It's possible but very unlikely.

Thanks for sharing! It's always the project that takes off people notice but they miss the years of experimenting and learning.

Have you ever looked at a successful founder and thought, “Wow, they must have just gotten lucky”? It’s easy to assume that someone had overnight success, but the truth is often much different. It’s also easy to use this as an excuse why you won’t build your own project.

In fact, most builders and makers have many failed projects before they finally hit on the one that takes off. These failures are often the result of years of hard work and determination, and they are just as important as the success that eventually follows. This post is inspired by Pieter Levels’ tweet on how only 4 out of hit 70+ projects ever made money, and 95% of everything he made failed.

It sounds like ads are going to be the first source of revenue.

Yes it is. It’s amazing what you can build online as a solo dev!