IANA's email about why example.com changed | Hacker News Reader

IANA's email about why example.com changed

oliverdunk.com

65 pointsoliverdunk31 comments

I wonder why they decided to go with the specific language order that the messages appear in on the new page. First English is shown, which makes sense as it’s the most widely spoken language in the world. But then Arabic appears, which has far fewer speakers than e.g. Spanish or Mandarin. French and Russian are also shown before the Spanish message finally shows up. Perhaps I’m reading into the details too much, but this seems somewhat biased to me.

It reminds me of the “Hello” message that appears after (re-)installing iOS, which also cycles through different languages, but there the order is at least randomized iirc.

I think that it includes all the official languages of the UN [0], which is about as good as choice as any here.

[0]: https://www.un.org/

I was sad about not including my language, but at least it comfort me.

That explains the choice but not the order.

It does use the same order as the page you link to apart from English coming first, but where does that come from. It strikes me that it is alphabetic order in English if you call Mandarin Chinese.

Maybe stupid to point out on my part, but it HAS to be in a order. There's definitely a version of this that's just "the order we wrote it down" https://xkcd.com/221/

Though I think you're right that it's alphabetical by English name: Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, Spanish

It may be like how some country listings are implemented: United States / English first, then the rest alphabetically.

This is followed here: English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, Spanish.

The choice to include Russian is interesting, given the times.

I think first one is user's/browser/OS language. First one appearing for me is Spanish.

Seems to be an attempt to swap between Latin and other scripts, which if done intentionally, I can appreciate symmetry wise.

The switch to HTTPS means I can no longer use it to check if a public Wi-Fi network is working.

Then they succeeded?

> the domain isn't intended to be a general purpose endpoint for things like availability testing so we do not encourage that kind of usage

Well, perhaps it should be intended to be a general purpose endpoint for things like availability testing?!

You can use a service explicitly meant for that like http://neverssl.com.

That URL redirects to https://quietlushsilvermorning.neverssl.com/online/

An https URL. I assume this is some sort of joke.

It doesn't do that for me.

That's normal and intentional: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20584848

If it does lead to an HTTPS page, I believe that only happens when your browser tries HTTPS before HTTP (if it tries HTTP at all).

The irony has not gone unnoticed: https://twitter.com/NeverSSL/status/1456310362551164928

But that doesn't explain why they do it.

From my HN link:

> 1. Why does neverssl.com use Javascript to redirect to a random subdomain?

> Over the last year users reported that some networks aggressively cache the fake DNS and pages they use for wifi capture. Neverssl.com now works around this generating a request to a random subdomain - this will bust any DNS cache, and any HTTP cache. It also means that if your browser or ISP caches the Neverssl.com page itself, that's fine.

That doesn't explain why networks aggressively caching a fake DNS is a problem for their website without SSL redirects.

I like to use logon.com which for some reason occasionally routes to the login page of a captive portal. Why a method to get back to it hasn't been unified is beyond me. (Cue xkcd on standards)

It's still accessible over http, I just double checked!

Always use i for exactly that. Of if the hotspot page on hotels doesn’t pop up.

The languages switch too fast. Many readers will not have finished reading the text.

I didn't know they changed the page until I saw this article. Interesting.

Maybe it could be further optimized, if it did return a plaintext answer, if the user agent is curl or similar.

It would also be interesting to see the content of the email initially sent to IANA

Sure! It was quite brief but here you go:

Hi,

I noticed that the content on https://example.com has been updated!

Can you share any context on the changes and who worked on them?

I work at Google - would I be able to share your answer on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@ChromeDevs) or on my own personal social media?

I haven't spoken to my team so just asking in a personal capacity at this point, but maybe it could make a fun video!

Thanks, Oliver

IMHO they should have followed some opinionated advice on how to build a website:

https://modernmotherfuckingwebsite.dreamstation.systems/

Or indeed the classic:

https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/

It's an example. It should be exemplary, in size and in simplicity.

Actually, they get a smaller first response for simple GET-Requests, because the Javascript will not be served. It will only be loaded and served by proper browsers loading the page.

Ah, OK, fair enough.

Check the sources of the classic in devtools. You'll be severely disappointed.

(It's got Google Analytics)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com