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p/forward-4Create privacy-focused shortened URLs
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Nic Coates

Forward - Create privacy-focused shortened URLs

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Forward is a simple, privacy-focused alternative to free URL shorteners. Using human-readable links that only track the amount of times it's been visited, never collecting any data, with URL-screen checking against a curated deny-list.

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Nic Coates
Maker
šŸ‘‹ Hey folks! It's great to be back - haven't made a product in a while! On Friday, I sent out a tweet where I challenged myself to build a side project in 24 hours over the weekend. Super happy to announce, after 17 hours the result: Forward, a privacy-focused URL shortener. šŸ¤” Privacy matters, you shouldn't be tracked I regularly use URL shorteners, especially in tweets & emails but I found that many free URL shorteners: āŒ Randomly generated a shortened URL āŒ URLs simply redirect, but you don't know if they are safe āŒ Free means your potentially giving up your data via tracking šŸš€ Forward changes this! With Forward, it's built with privacy in mind and has a host of features: āœ… Custom URL aliases (not randomly generated) āœ… Redirect screen that lasts 1s that presents users with the URL they are being redirected to āœ… URLs are checked against a human curated deny-list āœ… Easily see how many clicks your URL has received (we collect no data other than when a URL has been clicked) āœ… Super-easy, clean, URL dashboard for you to manage āœ… Hosted outside of the US & UK (we host in Germany, read more here on why you should avoid US/UK/Five Eyes) šŸŽ‰ Get started for free; upgrade to Pro Get started with 2 active URLs for free and upgrade to pro for unlimited. Upgrading helps to keep the service running and enables me to pour my time into improving. I'm working on adding more Pro features and in the future a Business plan that will include custom domains, branded redirect pages & more! Thanks & looking forward to chatting in the comments šŸ‘‡
Sergio Mattei
Nick is an incredibly skilled maker that makes fantastic products. Forward is no exception to this pattern ā€” congrats on the launch!
Nic Coates
Maker
@matteing Thanks for the support Sergio, much appreciated. Makerlog & it's community has been a huge encouragement for continuing to ship so thank you for building ML šŸ™Œ
Ali Salah
Congrats on the launch, Nick! šŸ„³
Nic Coates
Maker
@alisalahio Thanks Ali šŸ™Œ
Bruce
It was super exciting to see you build this product on Twitter and it looks really promising :)
Nic Coates
Maker
@bcye Thanks for the support! Was super fun building this in public & so pleased I've been able to ship something after tweeting about it!
Samuele Bertocco
It looks like a really good product UI Feedback: - The mobile UI is not optimized - The "help" page returns error 404
Nic Coates
Maker
@brtsml Thanks for the feedback. I'm working on making the UI responsive for mobile and am fixing the help page now, thanks for pointing that out šŸ™Œ
Wilson Bright
Is there a custom domain or CNAME functionality?
Nic Coates
Maker
@wilsonbright Currently no, that is something that I'll be working on for a future Business plan.
Wilson Bright
@gadgick Thanks for sharing. Would adding UTM tags lead to privacy issues? What are your thoughts on it?
razi syed
Heyy Nick, fwd.so looks amazing. Can't wait to try it for myself.
Nic Coates
Maker
@therazialam Thanks so much for the support Razi!
Stephan Arenswald
Made such a Service for myself for a project some time ago. Never thought that it would bring any value when publishing it as a product. Great that you think different šŸ¤£. Nice work!
Nic Coates
Maker
@sarensw Thanks sir! I needed to scratch-my-own-itch & figured others would like to use it, even if it was 1 other person šŸ˜†
Eduardo Sasso
That's pretty impressive. A full product in 17 hours? Amazing. It looks great. Congrats on the launch.
Nic Coates
Maker
@eduardosasso Thanks Eduardo!
Oleksii Huralnyk
Everything works fine for me. Nice product.
Nic Coates
Maker
@huralnyk Thanks!
Kush Saraswat
Great product !
Jack Whiting
Product looks like a solid service. However, the landing page seems to have taken a lot of inspiration from https://usefathom.com/.
Nic Coates
Maker
@jackabox Thanks Jack. Fathom has been some of my inspiration, both building the product & the simplicity of the landing page. The original Hey.com landing page was also my inspiration with keeping it simple.
Paul David Atherton
signed up, trying to do my first url shortener - keep getting an error 404 screen -what am I doing wrong please ? Thanks Paul
Nic Coates
Maker
@paul_david_atherton Hi Paul, could you let me know what the URL is where you are getting the 404? Thanks!