I find this submission of this article interesting because it underscores inconsistent handling of I18N/punycode domains. The domain is "thiébaud.fr". Should submission sites (like HN) show the sites in ASCII? Is there a fraud risk? Should the web browser show the domain in ASCII?
For me - at no point was I shown the domain decoded to ASCII (either on HN or in the browser). I recognized the pattern and decoded it manually. For users who are not technical - this is a failed experience because the domain looks suspicious and at no point was it decoded.
I wonder when punycode decoding will begin to get attention from developers. Last year's Google IO had a great talk about how Google realized the inconsistency of their domain handling with regard to I18N:
It's a vector for putting in disruptive utf-8 characters, such as a huge stack of accents, or spoofing a reputable domain. It's not clear yet that the benefits to HN outweigh the risks. But if we start seeing a lot of quality content from domains that look better with punycode decoded, it'll be considered.
For me - at no point was I shown the domain decoded to ASCII (either on HN or in the browser). I recognized the pattern and decoded it manually. For users who are not technical - this is a failed experience because the domain looks suspicious and at no point was it decoded.
I wonder when punycode decoding will begin to get attention from developers. Last year's Google IO had a great talk about how Google realized the inconsistency of their domain handling with regard to I18N:
https://www.google.com/events/io/schedule/session/22ce27dc-7...