luke

Zero Width Shortener - Shorten URLs with zero-width characters

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Zero Width Shortener (abbreviated as ZWS) is a URL shortener that shortens URLs using spaces that have zero width, making them invisible to humans.

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Samarth Jajoo
Really cool! I wish it worked on twitter.
Yousef Sultan
@jajoosam Good catch, I didn't try on Twitter before. We'll see how we're going to approach and fix this soon enough.
David Clifford
@jajoosam @overcoder0 best of luck. It's a great idea, just needs to work across all the different random sites people use.
Yousef Sultan
@jajoosam @david_clifford9 This is exactly what we are doing now! Thanks!
Marko Arezina
@treggify Not about the link shortener, but I really love the way you present the case studies on your website.
Brandon Webster
all the URLs will look alike if this worked, confusing visitors to more than one person who uses this service.. also people might think the url is a mistake w 2 slashes and just directly visit https://zws.im instead of ever clicking the link. I think this needs more thought, sorry.
ping yao
it is not zero width when open with Safari.
Yousef Sultan
@yaoping Can you please share a screenshot or something?
Yousef Sultan
@yaoping @karanganesan Thanks for the feedback, we'll look into that! :)
Jonah Snider
@yaoping I just released an update that changes one of the characters so that "MVS" doesn't show up.
Ihor Levenets 🇺🇦
The idea is interesting, but yeah, multiple links may create confusion for both sides (users and link creators). Just curious - how did you come up with an idea to create this kind of a service? And why? Also, it's probably in your backlog already, but be sure not to forget to create a comfortable stats page. Because now seeing stats for multiple links takes a lot of time and nerve.
ping yao
When I used your service in Safari, I got a shortened URL with strange characters. But I can't post these characters here. I guess it's probably because I'm using a Chinese operating system. I suggest you test it in the Asian Language System.
Amit yadav
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Eugeniu Vozoca
Doesn't work in Telegram, iMessage
Yousef Sultan
@devjah working on those! 🤠
Vitaliy Hayda
works for me, this is awesome
Ayoola Salako
Is this... sorcery?
Lee Fuhr
So what _are_ the zero-width characters? I'm always on the hunt for a good character I can use to force a folder, or layer in Sketch, or something else to sort to the top or bottom alphabetically… a zero-width character that always sorts before 0 and another that's always after Z would be great!
Jonah Snider
@cozysd We are using the original zero width space (U200B) and a zero width non-joiner (U200C). We're experimenting with different characters for broader support on platforms.
Chad Wyatt
Very creative. I think of it more as URL "cloaking" vs "shortening". I doubt you'll be able to get it to work on twitter, as they are most likely filtering for certain characters to recognize the URL. The same thing happens in Messenger app and SMS on my phone. Regardless, I love the thought process and think there are many uses for this type of thing.
Chad Wyatt
BTW, I did confirm that it works for me on FB on both desktop and mobile as a post and as a web link in my profile.
Narek Vardanyan
very cool one!
Jennifer Robinson
I like the idea. Good luck working out the details!
Evgeny
Great thing!
Sergio Salas
black magic
Aidan Wolf
Did this service crash? I just get "Error: could not handle the request"
Jonah Snider
@aidan Sorry to hear that. It looks like we got ratelimited because of the boost in popularity. It should be resolved now.
Jean Pierre R.
Awesome, it works! Hopefully, there's an extension so that we can create links on the fly!
Mayank Shaan Dhania
Now this is a really cool idea
Mayur Macwan
Wow guys, this is really cool!