Show HN: Trails – a transparent, privacy-first URL shortener API

[anwitars]

Hi HN,

I built Trails, a transparent URL shortener with a simple public API.

Unlike most URL shorteners, Trails: - does not store IPs - visits are counted using a SHA-256 hash, so they can’t be linked back to users - Lets you “peek” at a short link before clicking, so you know where it goes - Has no accounts, paywalls, or tracking — just a free API

You can find examples on the GitHub page, and also it has a public website that uses this service: https://trls.link/

API repo: https://github.com/anwitars/tiny-trails Web client repo: https://github.com/anwitars/trails-web

I would love feedback on design decisions, and the roadmap included in the API's readme, especially the dynamic Trails idea.

[TimLeland]

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.

[anwitars]

I appreciate your feedback, and I completely agree with you that malicious users would immediately start to exploit it. Although I remain confident (for now), that the service's peek/info features help protecting innocent users from such activities. If it fails to deliver that safety, I will definitely implement something that you mentioned.

I would always love to hear feedback, so you should just reach out as well if you have anything in mind.