What Does “Private” Actually Mean for a URL Shortener?
Many URL shorteners claim to be “private” but still store every link in a database, require an email to sign up, and log click analytics by default. A truly private URL shortener should have no ability to see your data — not just a promise not to look.
thishere.com achieves this through its stateless architecture. Your URL is compressed and encoded entirely within your browser. The resulting shortened link contains the full encoded URL — no server-side lookup is needed. We cannot see your URLs because they never reach us in the first place.
How a Stateless Private URL Shortener Works
Traditional URL shorteners map a short code (like bit.ly/abc123) to a destination URL stored in a database. This creates a permanent record of every link you create and every click it receives.
thishere.com works differently. When you paste a URL, your browser applies dictionary-based pattern matching (replacing common URL patterns like https://www. with single-byte tokens) followed by DEFLATE compression. The compressed bytes are then encoded using a URL-safe alphabet. The result is a self-contained link that decodes to the original URL without any server-side state.
The Privacy Problem with Conventional Link Shorteners
When you shorten a URL with Bitly, TinyURL, or similar services, you create a record in their database that includes your IP address, the original URL, and a timestamp. When anyone clicks that link, the service logs the clicker's IP address, geographic location, device type, browser, operating system, and the referring page.
This data is retained indefinitely. It can be accessed by the service's employees, shared with business partners, sold to advertisers, disclosed in response to legal requests, or exposed in data breaches. Even “unlisted” links are still stored and queryable.
A private URL shortener should make this data collection architecturally impossible — which is exactly what stateless compression achieves.
When You Need a Private URL Shortener
- Sharing personal or sensitive links on public forums
- Distributing links in contexts where you want no record of your sharing
- Creating shortened links that cannot be associated with your identity
- Sharing links that never expire and cannot be disabled by a third party
- Using a URL shortener that complies with privacy regulations by design, not by policy
Frequently Asked Questions
How is this different from incognito mode?
Incognito mode prevents your browser from saving history locally, but the URL shortener you use still collects data on their servers. thishere.com ensures no data is collected in the first place — your URL is never sent to a server.
Can my ISP see the original URL?
Your ISP can see that you visited thishere.com, but the URL encoding happens entirely in JavaScript in your browser. The original URL you are shortening is never transmitted over the network.
Are private shortened links permanent?
Yes. Since the destination is encoded in the link itself, there is no database record that could be deleted. Your links work as long as thishere.com is online.