What it does:
\u2022 Short links on your own domain (yourname.com/thing) that redirect instantly.
\u2022 A searchable page listing all your links. Typos are redirected to the search page.
\u2022 QR codes for each link, generated in js in the browser, no external API calls.
\u2022 Click counts via GoatCounter (free, privacy-preserving, no cookies)
\u2022 Nested paths if you want them (e.g. contact/email, contact/whatsapp, etc.)
\u2022 Access control for who can edit links is done through github repo access.
Why another link shortener? Paid link shorteners cost money every month for something that's really just a lookup table. Free open-source link shorteners require you to host the app somewhere and pay monthly for that instead. Freemium services like bitly paywall you with limits on the number of links, edit ability, sometimes redirect your QR code to an ad . So I built a link shortening tool focused on simplicity as a static website and open-sourced it.
Setup: fork the repo, edit the config and the links, turn on GitHub Pages. Takes about five minutes. MIT licensed, free, no ads, no account required beyond GitHub itself.
Live example: jinx.fyi\nCode: github.com/gdmcdonald/jinx
Would love to hear feedback, what do you like or not like, what would make it more useful for you?"},"title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Show HN: Jinx \u2013 a link shortener you host free on GitHub Pages"},"url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"https://jinx.fyi"}},"_tags":["story","author_SubmersibleZoom","story_49749716","show_hn"],"author":"SubmersibleZoom","children":[49751448,49760718],"created_at":"2026-09-18T02:56:04Z","created_at_i":1789700164,"num_comments":4,"objectID":"49749716","points":9,"story_id":49749716,"story_text":"Jinx is just links, a small static website on GitHub to share short links to your stuff. Add your links to one file, turn on GitHub Pages, and point your own domain at it. I built it because the options all seemed wrong for a small team: paid shorteners charge monthly for what's essentially a lookup table; free self-hosted ones (YOURLS, Shlink, etc.) still need a server and a database to maintain; and free tiers of hosted services like bitly or tinyurl cap your links or paywall basic features. It\u2019s working well for my team at work.
What it does:
\u2022 Short links on your own domain (yourname.com/thing) that redirect instantly.
\u2022 A searchable page listing all your links. Typos are redirected to the search page.
\u2022 QR codes for each link, generated in js in the browser, no external API calls.
\u2022 Click counts via GoatCounter (free, privacy-preserving, no cookies)
\u2022 Nested paths if you want them (e.g. contact/email, contact/whatsapp, etc.)
\u2022 Access control for who can edit links is done through github repo access.
Why another link shortener? Paid link shorteners cost money every month for something that's really just a lookup table. Free open-source link shorteners require you to host the app somewhere and pay monthly for that instead. Freemium services like bitly paywall you with limits on the number of links, edit ability, sometimes redirect your QR code to an ad . So I built a link shortening tool focused on simplicity as a static website and open-sourced it.
Setup: fork the repo, edit the config and the links, turn on GitHub Pages. Takes about five minutes. MIT licensed, free, no ads, no account required beyond GitHub itself.
Live example: jinx.fyi\nCode: github.com/gdmcdonald/jinx
Would love to hear feedback, what do you like or not like, what would make it more useful for you?","title":"Show HN: Jinx \u2013 a link shortener you host free on GitHub Pages","updated_at":"2026-09-21T13:58:59Z","url":"https://jinx.fyi"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"7777777phil"},"story_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["yourls"],"value":"I\u2019ve GoatCounter [1], a "privacy-friendly" site visit counter that tracks pageviews by inserting a small JavaScript snippet on my website for some weeks now.
Today, I posted a link [2] to a blog post of mine on HN, but instead of linking directly, I used my YOURLS URL shortener. In the span of about 2 hours, I saw ~350 clicks counted on the shortened URL. When I checked the raw hits from my GoatCounter data, there were exactly 7 hits recorded\u20143 of which had hackernews.com as the referrer.
I was expecting that a good number of HN users might be using AdBlock or VPNs, but 98% of my traffic being blocked or filtered seems unusually high.\nIs this a common experience for anyone else here? Do most HN users have AdBlock, VPNs, or other privacy tools that block tracking scripts?
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34265127\n[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46097184"},"title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Ask HN: Are 98% of HN Readers Using AdBlock?"}},"_tags":["story","author_7777777phil","story_46099563","ask_hn"],"author":"7777777phil","children":[46099657,46100928],"created_at":"2025-11-30T19:25:06Z","created_at_i":1764530706,"num_comments":3,"objectID":"46099563","points":1,"story_id":46099563,"story_text":"I\u2019ve GoatCounter [1], a "privacy-friendly" site visit counter that tracks pageviews by inserting a small JavaScript snippet on my website for some weeks now.
Today, I posted a link [2] to a blog post of mine on HN, but instead of linking directly, I used my YOURLS URL shortener. In the span of about 2 hours, I saw ~350 clicks counted on the shortened URL. When I checked the raw hits from my GoatCounter data, there were exactly 7 hits recorded\u20143 of which had hackernews.com as the referrer.
I was expecting that a good number of HN users might be using AdBlock or VPNs, but 98% of my traffic being blocked or filtered seems unusually high.\nIs this a common experience for anyone else here? Do most HN users have AdBlock, VPNs, or other privacy tools that block tracking scripts?
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34265127\n[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46097184","title":"Ask HN: Are 98% of HN Readers Using AdBlock?","updated_at":"2026-03-05T23:10:57Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"mercurial"},"comment_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["yourls"],"value":"Sure, but consider the common case of wanting the most recent file/directory in a directory. This would be something like "ls -t|head -n 1". It's pretty convenient, AND your ls function still returns only file and directory names, no additional information.
Here, you'd need to either parametrize the return type of ls to get simple strings (which is what you want most of time) or additional metadata, or alternatively to have different ls commands."},"story_title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Use Haskell for shell scripting"},"story_url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"http://www.haskellforall.com/2015/01/use-haskell-for-shell-scripting.html"}},"_tags":["comment","author_mercurial","story_8970733"],"author":"mercurial","comment_text":"Sure, but consider the common case of wanting the most recent file/directory in a directory. This would be something like "ls -t|head -n 1". It's pretty convenient, AND your ls function still returns only file and directory names, no additional information.
Here, you'd need to either parametrize the return type of ls to get simple strings (which is what you want most of time) or additional metadata, or alternatively to have different ls commands.","created_at":"2015-01-30T16:09:59Z","created_at_i":1422634199,"objectID":"8972668","parent_id":8972175,"points":null,"story_id":8970733,"story_title":"Use Haskell for shell scripting","story_url":"http://www.haskellforall.com/2015/01/use-haskell-for-shell-scripting.html","updated_at":"2023-09-06T23:24:04Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"dublinben"},"comment_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["yourls"],"value":"I'm amazed that they thought it was a smart business decision to rely on a free bit.ly account (with their own domain!) instead of running their own URL shortener. Yourls (https://yourls.org/) is free and open source, and has been around for years. There's an excellent reason why every major publisher operates their own URL shortening service, and this article demonstrates it perfectly."},"story_title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Bit.ly's shady business model"},"story_url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"http://ozkatz.github.io/bitlys-shady-business-model.html?hn"}},"_tags":["comment","author_dublinben","story_7883670"],"author":"dublinben","comment_text":"I'm amazed that they thought it was a smart business decision to rely on a free bit.ly account (with their own domain!) instead of running their own URL shortener. Yourls (https://yourls.org/) is free and open source, and has been around for years. There's an excellent reason why every major publisher operates their own URL shortening service, and this article demonstrates it perfectly.","created_at":"2014-06-12T15:11:50Z","created_at_i":1402585910,"objectID":"7883819","parent_id":7883670,"story_id":7883670,"story_title":"Bit.ly's shady business model","story_url":"http://ozkatz.github.io/bitlys-shady-business-model.html?hn","updated_at":"2024-09-19T20:59:02Z"}],"hitsPerPage":10,"nbHits":498146,"nbPages":100,"page":0,"params":"query=YOURLS&hitsPerPage=10&advancedSyntax=true&analyticsTags=backend","processingTimeMS":106,"processingTimingsMS":{"_request":{"queue":2,"roundTrip":18},"afterFetch":{"merge":{"mergeLoop":{"prepareNextHit":3,"total":3},"total":3},"total":3},"fetch":{"query":8,"scanning":93,"total":102},"total":106},"query":"YOURLS","serverTimeMS":109}