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UrlHosted Experiment: Host Content Within the URL

Posted by timothy on from the because-he-can-is-all-you-need dept.

New submitter graphicore writes to point out an experimental "unhosted" app that challenges the concept of the URL. By putting the post data after the # mark, the URL is (mis-)used as the data storage. You can store your data within your bookmarks list, host it via a URL-shortener(!) like here: http://goo.gl/DYxr5m or attach it directly to a tweet I also attached the full-url to this slashdot post :-) This raises the question about who is hosting the content and it will probably break the internet. This is a quote from Google's shortener policy: "Please remember that goo.gl directs you to content that is already in existence on the internet. This is not content hosted by Google." It could also become a storage strategy for any other web app. The app is GPL v3, no strings attached. And there's always DNS, too.

3 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Question by mrvan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You know what's scary?

    (1) That someone on friggin' slashdot has no clue what the # in a url is, and thinks that asking it is easier than just friggin' googling it

    (2) That another poster on slashdot answers in apparent earnest with "I usually see it used to make you jump down to a particular heading in, e.g., a wiki article. I think it also activates stuff in scripts sometimes?"

    For crying out loud, where did all the nerds go? Reddit?

  2. Ingenious by Jo+Inge+Arnes · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I love this idea! Also, I have to add something: If the URL-shortner uses 302 to redirect to the full URL, the content part behind the anchor/hash will not be sent to the server. It will still available to the JavaScript returned from the server that is run in the browser. So the server will not know about the content. (This feature is already used by e.g. OAuth2) In addition, instead of accessing a remote server, the URL could point to localhost, and the user could run the "content unpacking" webserver locally (and maybe automatically prevent any unwanted cross-site requests, since this is the default behaviour of the browser)

  3. Re:Question by elgatozorbas · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You know what's scary? That someone politely asks a question -which is completely on topic- and gets so much condescending flak about this. Not all nerds are html/scripting/ coding wizards.
    And maybe, maybe, sometimes non-nerds stroll here accidentally. Let's quickly chase them away!