Example Domain (opens in new tab)

(example.com)

120 pointsAllezxandre4y ago64 comments

64 comments

44 comments · 12 top-level

Lightbody4y ago· 9 in thread

This is a great reminder that when working with test data for stuff like email delivery, always use example.com (or a few other similar TLDs) and not stuff like "test.com" or "acme.com" or "dummyuser.com". I see this all the time by devs and they don't understand the risk and why example.com was put into the standards.

psadauskas4y ago

I always use `myco.example` for testing requests and emails, as well as documentation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.example

It'll never resolve to anything, and makes it really obvious the code is for testing or sample code.

orev4y ago

Never heard of the .example TLD, so thanks for that. However, an issue I see with it is that it doesn’t look like a domain name. Things that end in ‘.com’ are synonymous with domain names, regardless of how accurate that assumption really is. I think people are just starting to get familiar with these new alternative TLD names, but I can easily see business people not understanding ‘myco.example’, while they would understand ’example.com’.

tomcam4y ago

No guarantee an .example TLD won't be created

3 more replies

linuxlizard4y ago

I have a .com domain with 'test' in the name. I was mildly DNS spammed because Microsoft admins would create that thing with test in the name. I'd get 10-20 DNS packets a day. I moved it to an external DNS provider just to give my logs a break.

mathfailure4y ago

20 packets a day? Phew! So you barely survived the DDoS!

2 more replies

Uehreka4y ago

At least you’re not a sysadmin for Contoso, those folks must have their hands full.

GauntletWizard4y ago

I have an integration test domain. It's just another domain, so far as my systems are concerned, but it's another domain I own and sign up as a customer for all my services. Rather: I sign it up as a customer on my staging instance, which is a real, public facing instance, that gets no advertising.

It's a real domain with functioning... whatever I need to test. Email, DNS, Identity servers, etc.

tdrdt4y ago

Exactly this. People heavily underestimate how many domain names are registered.

There is a huge chance that you hit a mailbox when you make up an email address.

throwawayboise4y ago

Yep, even if you use a "random" email address like j4i58tujq45uh@foobar.com, they may very well have a "catch all" email account that will receive that mail.

intosi4y ago· 6 in thread

I forgot I had it installed on my phone, but clicking the link opened, to my surprise, the Simply Piano app. Why you'd associate your app with that domain for legitimate purposes is a bit of a mystery to me.

BillinghamJ4y ago

Isn't that meant to be cryptographically paired? Apps shouldn't be able to intercept random domain names whenever they want

You'd need the right info at URLs like:

https://example.com/apple-app-site-association

https://example.com/.well-known/apple-app-site-association

https://example.com/.well-known/assetlinks.json (Android)

(which obviously don't exist for this domain)

smashed4y ago

Probably by copy pasting example code?

pjerem4y ago

That.

jaffacakes4y ago

This shouldn't be possible on Android. Google requires apps capturing http/s deeplinks verify ownership of the URI.[1] They can accept any other schema declared in their manifest otherwise. Example code would seem most plausible, but I can't see how it would work.

[1] https://developer.android.com/training/app-links/verify-site...

kevingadd4y ago

Twitter deeplinks open the third-party Twitter client I have installed (Fenix) on Android for me.

lgats4y ago

iOS or Android?

nness4y ago· 5 in thread

The advantage of example.com is that its still served over HTTP, which is very helpful if you are trying to force a redirect for wifi login or 'out of quota' on a phone plan.

BenjiWiebe4y ago

Let me introduce you to neverssl.com!

shakna4y ago

The difference being, example.com is run by IANA [0] and guaranteed by them, whereas neverssl is just a kind-hearted soul, and may one day resolve to something else.

[0] https://www.iana.org/domains/reserved

3 more replies

teddyh4y ago

There are a number of those. I use

http://detectportal.firefox.com/

3 more replies

1vuio0pswjnm74y ago

Why is it that popular browsers do not allow users to manually disable the behaviour that necessitates this apparently common workaround.^1 Is this another example of "tech" company paternalism.

1. Examples

https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/149852/how-legi...

https://zapier.com/blog/open-wifi-login-page/

http://www.my80211.com/home/2012/7/23/web-auth-redirect-does...

lolsal4y ago

> Why is it that popular browsers do not allow users to manually disable the behaviour that necessitates this workaround.

Probably the number of people that care about overriding this behavior could be counted on one hand.

> Is this another example of "tech" company paternalism.

No.

oftenwrong4y ago· 3 in thread

IANA also reserves TLDs like '.test' and '.example' as well as some IDN equivalents.

https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2606.html

https://www.iana.org/domains/reserved

colmmacc4y ago

There are also documentation and example IP prefixes! 192.0.2.0/24 and 2001:db8::/32.

santiagobasulto4y ago

And .local, right?

lioeters4y ago

Actually, no. According to RFC 2606 - Reserved Top Level DNS Names, the following four domain names are reserved:

  .test
  .example
  .invalid
  .localhost

ezekiell4y ago· 3 in thread

I would to know how much traffic this website receives

kijeda4y ago

It was about 80Mbps earlier this year: https://twitter.com/kjd/status/1405887961791569924

seqizz4y ago

I also want to know how many secrets just flow in

addingnumbers4y ago

For a while my Amazon Alexa gadget was hitting three domains several times an hour, example.com/net/org. I looked with tcpdump and verified it was following every lookup with an HTTP get.

I only left the Alexa on for a week while I was recovering from eye surgery, but it made those the top three most frequently queried domains for that whole month on my pi-hole charts.

Presumably it was some connectivity test, but all three of those domains were hosted at the same IP at the time. Which would defeat the point of using three domains, if the goal was to reduce the possibility of one outage causing a false negative on the test.

psim14y ago· 2 in thread

    $ dig example.com. mx +short
    0 .

It has an interesting MX record. I wonder what this does? Specifically, what should a mail agent do when the MX record points to "." ?

oftenwrong4y ago

That's a "null MX", indicating that the domain does not accept mail.

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7505

psim14y ago

Thanks! That RFC is new to me.

pupppet4y ago· 2 in thread

Good on whomever for making it a public service rather than a crap site filled with ads.

t3rabytes4y ago

It’s IANA directly: https://www.iana.org/domains/reserved

pupppet4y ago

Oh the number of times I’ve used that domain in mockups half wondering if I’m sending someone to a future porn site, I should’ve just checked!

entropie4y ago· 2 in thread

I wonder how they managed to get a horizontal scrollbar.

Edit: its a chrome extenstion I use.

folkrav4y ago

I don't get a horizontal scrollbar unless I resize the viewport to <159px wide.

entropie4y ago

I use brave.

But you are right. Its not really the fault of the markup of the side.

I use "Definer" chrome plugin [1].

That injects a absolute positioned #definer-bubble div with width:100% that does not work well with sites css thats sets a margin for every div.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/definer-advanced-p...

anonu4y ago

Only took 12 years of posting this to get a decent discussion going:

https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=example.com

macintux4y ago

Reminds me of the corp.com saga.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/04/microsoft-buys-corp-com-...

hereforphone4y ago

There are several domains dedicated for example and special purposes. This is just one.

https://www.iana.org/assignments/special-use-domain-names/sp...

https://www.iana.org/domains/reserved

politelemon4y ago

The web logs on example.com must be a treasure trove of interesting traffic, and also a security risk in some ways, depending on who has been testing with it.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

64 comments

44 comments · 12 top-level

Lightbody4y ago· 9 in thread

psadauskas4y ago

I always use `myco.example` for testing requests and emails, as well as documentation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.example

It'll never resolve to anything, and makes it really obvious the code is for testing or sample code.

orev4y ago

tomcam4y ago

No guarantee an .example TLD won't be created

3 more replies

linuxlizard4y ago

mathfailure4y ago

20 packets a day? Phew! So you barely survived the DDoS!

2 more replies

Uehreka4y ago

At least you’re not a sysadmin for Contoso, those folks must have their hands full.

GauntletWizard4y ago

It's a real domain with functioning... whatever I need to test. Email, DNS, Identity servers, etc.

tdrdt4y ago

Exactly this. People heavily underestimate how many domain names are registered.

There is a huge chance that you hit a mailbox when you make up an email address.

throwawayboise4y ago

Yep, even if you use a "random" email address like j4i58tujq45uh@foobar.com, they may very well have a "catch all" email account that will receive that mail.

intosi4y ago· 6 in thread

BillinghamJ4y ago

Isn't that meant to be cryptographically paired? Apps shouldn't be able to intercept random domain names whenever they want

You'd need the right info at URLs like:

https://example.com/apple-app-site-association

https://example.com/.well-known/apple-app-site-association

https://example.com/.well-known/assetlinks.json (Android)

(which obviously don't exist for this domain)

smashed4y ago

Probably by copy pasting example code?

pjerem4y ago

That.

jaffacakes4y ago

[1] https://developer.android.com/training/app-links/verify-site...

kevingadd4y ago

Twitter deeplinks open the third-party Twitter client I have installed (Fenix) on Android for me.

lgats4y ago

iOS or Android?

nness4y ago· 5 in thread

The advantage of example.com is that its still served over HTTP, which is very helpful if you are trying to force a redirect for wifi login or 'out of quota' on a phone plan.

BenjiWiebe4y ago

Let me introduce you to neverssl.com!

shakna4y ago

The difference being, example.com is run by IANA [0] and guaranteed by them, whereas neverssl is just a kind-hearted soul, and may one day resolve to something else.

[0] https://www.iana.org/domains/reserved

3 more replies

teddyh4y ago

There are a number of those. I use

http://detectportal.firefox.com/

3 more replies

1vuio0pswjnm74y ago

Why is it that popular browsers do not allow users to manually disable the behaviour that necessitates this apparently common workaround.^1 Is this another example of "tech" company paternalism.

1. Examples

https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/149852/how-legi...

https://zapier.com/blog/open-wifi-login-page/

http://www.my80211.com/home/2012/7/23/web-auth-redirect-does...

lolsal4y ago

> Why is it that popular browsers do not allow users to manually disable the behaviour that necessitates this workaround.

Probably the number of people that care about overriding this behavior could be counted on one hand.

> Is this another example of "tech" company paternalism.

No.

oftenwrong4y ago· 3 in thread

IANA also reserves TLDs like '.test' and '.example' as well as some IDN equivalents.

https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2606.html

https://www.iana.org/domains/reserved

colmmacc4y ago

There are also documentation and example IP prefixes! 192.0.2.0/24 and 2001:db8::/32.

santiagobasulto4y ago

And .local, right?

lioeters4y ago

Actually, no. According to RFC 2606 - Reserved Top Level DNS Names, the following four domain names are reserved:

  .test
  .example
  .invalid
  .localhost

ezekiell4y ago· 3 in thread

I would to know how much traffic this website receives

kijeda4y ago

It was about 80Mbps earlier this year: https://twitter.com/kjd/status/1405887961791569924

seqizz4y ago

I also want to know how many secrets just flow in

addingnumbers4y ago

For a while my Amazon Alexa gadget was hitting three domains several times an hour, example.com/net/org. I looked with tcpdump and verified it was following every lookup with an HTTP get.

I only left the Alexa on for a week while I was recovering from eye surgery, but it made those the top three most frequently queried domains for that whole month on my pi-hole charts.

psim14y ago· 2 in thread

    $ dig example.com. mx +short
    0 .

It has an interesting MX record. I wonder what this does? Specifically, what should a mail agent do when the MX record points to "." ?

oftenwrong4y ago

That's a "null MX", indicating that the domain does not accept mail.

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7505

psim14y ago

Thanks! That RFC is new to me.

pupppet4y ago· 2 in thread

Good on whomever for making it a public service rather than a crap site filled with ads.

t3rabytes4y ago

It’s IANA directly: https://www.iana.org/domains/reserved

pupppet4y ago

Oh the number of times I’ve used that domain in mockups half wondering if I’m sending someone to a future porn site, I should’ve just checked!

entropie4y ago· 2 in thread

I wonder how they managed to get a horizontal scrollbar.

Edit: its a chrome extenstion I use.

folkrav4y ago

I don't get a horizontal scrollbar unless I resize the viewport to <159px wide.

entropie4y ago

I use brave.

But you are right. Its not really the fault of the markup of the side.

I use "Definer" chrome plugin [1].

That injects a absolute positioned #definer-bubble div with width:100% that does not work well with sites css thats sets a margin for every div.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/definer-advanced-p...

anonu4y ago

Only took 12 years of posting this to get a decent discussion going:

https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=example.com

macintux4y ago

Reminds me of the corp.com saga.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/04/microsoft-buys-corp-com-...

hereforphone4y ago

There are several domains dedicated for example and special purposes. This is just one.

https://www.iana.org/assignments/special-use-domain-names/sp...

https://www.iana.org/domains/reserved

politelemon4y ago

The web logs on example.com must be a treasure trove of interesting traffic, and also a security risk in some ways, depending on who has been testing with it.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse