6 ms·

The Foo at bar.com

134 points by ANaimi 11y ago

mtmail 11y ago
Currently overloaded. Mirror: https://web.archive.org/web/20150623195101/http://bar.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150623195101/http://bar.com/
huuu 11y ago
Remember there are special domain names you can use to enter fake email addresses like example.com[1] I also entered addresses I thought were fake. But there are so many registered domain names you can't make sure they are really fake. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example.com
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
MasterScrat 11y ago
Reminds me of the guy who owns DoNotReply.com: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/03/they_told_you_not_to_reply.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/03/they_to...
- ipp 11y ago
  Also asdf.com: http://asdf.com/asdfemail.html http://asdf.com/asdfemail.html
- ablation 11y ago
  And yes, that is the same Chet Faliszek of Valve/Old Man Murray 'fame'.
smegel 11y ago
I think their database-foo is somewhat lacking...
chirau 11y ago
I hope you are a millionaire already, because you are sitting on some with that domain name. Kudos to you for keeping it this long.
- a_t 11y ago
  Love stumbling across domain/site combos like this. Like the digital equivalent of holdouts/nail houses (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holdout_%28real_estate%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holdout_%28real_estate%29). There's a surprising amount of them still out there.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
kozhevnikov 11y ago
I typically use `foo@example.com` [1] and `07700 900000` for mobile [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example.com [2] http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/numbering/guidance-tele-no/numbers-for-drama http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/numbering/guidance...
biot 11y ago
Relevant: http://acme.com/mail_filtering/ http://acme.com/mail_filtering/
dummyguy 11y ago
dummy@guy.me
- Tepix 11y ago
  That's another legal address. You knew that, didn't you?
dankcode 11y ago
Sitting on gold with that domain name. https://www.metricsbot.com/www/bar.com https://www.metricsbot.com/www/bar.com
- DEinspanjer 11y ago
  I can't help but think the pricing methodology on this site might be a bit off. I put uw.com in to check it because I know some of the history of that site. It said the site is worth less than $9.00!? uw.com was originally owned by a company called Underware. Their biggest product was a defect tracking tool called TrackRecord. They were bought by Compuware in the 90s, and in early 2000 or 2001, Compuware forgot to renew the domain and it was bought out from under them. Last I checked, two letter .com domains were pretty rare and valuable.
  - tomcam 11y ago
    > Last I checked, two letter .com domains were pretty rare and valuable. That was last time you checked. Now they're extremely rare and astoundingly valuable.
    - eridius 11y ago
      Last time I checked, you were no longer allowed to register 2-letter domains at .com, .org, or .net.
pilif 11y ago
I too am guilty of this and I would like to apologize if any of my old mistakes have ever caused you any additional work. I have since seen the light and switched over to example.com which doesn't have an MX and doesn't listen on port 25, so no harm can be done to it.
schmidp 11y ago
Since I own bar.io and foo@bar.io is a valid email address, I also receive some interesting emails from time to time.
userbinator 11y ago
lots of folks I wonder if these were the general population of users seen today, since AFAIK foo/bar are not in the vocabulary of most people as metasyntactic variables; I hear "blah" more commonly used for this purpose.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  It's not in the vocabulary of users (who don't know what "metasyntactic" means anyway), but it's still prominent in the vocabulary of developers.
aevernon 11y ago
When I was a comp sci student in the 90s, I was testing some code where I used foo@bar.com as a placeholder. Amusingly, I got a reply from The Foo, and now I'm glad to know I wasn't the only one who accidentally emailed him/her. As others have pointed out, username@example.com is a better choice for documentation and examples.
idbentley 11y ago
http://www.something.com/ http://www.something.com/
TDL 11y ago
Well, I guess I should apologize to the folks at bob.com. It's example.com for me from now on.
cdnsteve 11y ago
Anything @test.com would have gotten sample stuff from at least one dev as well, so sorry about that!
erroneousfunk 11y ago
Also see asdf@asdf.com: http://asdf.com/asdfemail.html http://asdf.com/asdfemail.html I've gone to asdf.com for about 15 years now, and it hasn't changed it all. It's also always up, so it's handy to go to to test and see if I have Internet. I love that site.
- SerpentJoe 11y ago
  It also loads quickly and runs almost no Javascript, making it great for anything you want to test in the dev console.
  - howsiwei 11y ago
    I use http://to/ http://to/ for testing purposes. It has the shortest url and the the webpage consists of only 4 short lines of html.
vortico 11y ago
I love the MX 127.0.0.1 trick. I'm curious if that works as well as I think it does.
rwhitman 11y ago
I feel kind shamefully guilty now. I'm sorry.

134 points by ANaimi 11y ago

Currently overloaded. Mirror: https://web.archive.org/web/20150623195101/http://bar.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150623195101/http://bar.com/

huuu 11y ago

Remember there are special domain names you can use to enter fake email addresses like example.com[1] I also entered addresses I thought were fake. But there are so many registered domain names you can't make sure they are really fake. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example.com

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

MasterScrat 11y ago

Reminds me of the guy who owns DoNotReply.com: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/03/they_told_you_not_to_reply.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/03/they_to...

ipp 11y ago
Also asdf.com: http://asdf.com/asdfemail.html http://asdf.com/asdfemail.html
ablation 11y ago
And yes, that is the same Chet Faliszek of Valve/Old Man Murray 'fame'.

smegel 11y ago

I think their database-foo is somewhat lacking...

chirau 11y ago

I hope you are a millionaire already, because you are sitting on some with that domain name. Kudos to you for keeping it this long.

a_t 11y ago
Love stumbling across domain/site combos like this. Like the digital equivalent of holdouts/nail houses (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holdout_%28real_estate%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holdout_%28real_estate%29). There's a surprising amount of them still out there.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

kozhevnikov 11y ago

I typically use `foo@example.com` [1] and `07700 900000` for mobile [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example.com [2] http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/numbering/guidance-tele-no/numbers-for-drama http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/numbering/guidance...

biot 11y ago

Relevant: http://acme.com/mail_filtering/ http://acme.com/mail_filtering/

dummyguy 11y ago

dummy@guy.me

Tepix 11y ago
That's another legal address. You knew that, didn't you?

dankcode 11y ago

Sitting on gold with that domain name. https://www.metricsbot.com/www/bar.com https://www.metricsbot.com/www/bar.com

DEinspanjer 11y ago
I can't help but think the pricing methodology on this site might be a bit off. I put uw.com in to check it because I know some of the history of that site. It said the site is worth less than $9.00!? uw.com was originally owned by a company called Underware. Their biggest product was a defect tracking tool called TrackRecord. They were bought by Compuware in the 90s, and in early 2000 or 2001, Compuware forgot to renew the domain and it was bought out from under them. Last I checked, two letter .com domains were pretty rare and valuable.
- tomcam 11y ago
  > Last I checked, two letter .com domains were pretty rare and valuable. That was last time you checked. Now they're extremely rare and astoundingly valuable.
  - eridius 11y ago
    Last time I checked, you were no longer allowed to register 2-letter domains at .com, .org, or .net.

pilif 11y ago

I too am guilty of this and I would like to apologize if any of my old mistakes have ever caused you any additional work. I have since seen the light and switched over to example.com which doesn't have an MX and doesn't listen on port 25, so no harm can be done to it.

schmidp 11y ago

Since I own bar.io and foo@bar.io is a valid email address, I also receive some interesting emails from time to time.

userbinator 11y ago

lots of folks I wonder if these were the general population of users seen today, since AFAIK foo/bar are not in the vocabulary of most people as metasyntactic variables; I hear "blah" more commonly used for this purpose.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
It's not in the vocabulary of users (who don't know what "metasyntactic" means anyway), but it's still prominent in the vocabulary of developers.

aevernon 11y ago

When I was a comp sci student in the 90s, I was testing some code where I used foo@bar.com as a placeholder. Amusingly, I got a reply from The Foo, and now I'm glad to know I wasn't the only one who accidentally emailed him/her. As others have pointed out, username@example.com is a better choice for documentation and examples.

idbentley 11y ago

http://www.something.com/ http://www.something.com/

TDL 11y ago

Well, I guess I should apologize to the folks at bob.com. It's example.com for me from now on.

cdnsteve 11y ago

Anything @test.com would have gotten sample stuff from at least one dev as well, so sorry about that!

erroneousfunk 11y ago

Also see asdf@asdf.com: http://asdf.com/asdfemail.html http://asdf.com/asdfemail.html I've gone to asdf.com for about 15 years now, and it hasn't changed it all. It's also always up, so it's handy to go to to test and see if I have Internet. I love that site.

SerpentJoe 11y ago
It also loads quickly and runs almost no Javascript, making it great for anything you want to test in the dev console.
- howsiwei 11y ago
  I use http://to/ http://to/ for testing purposes. It has the shortest url and the the webpage consists of only 4 short lines of html.

vortico 11y ago

I love the MX 127.0.0.1 trick. I'm curious if that works as well as I think it does.

rwhitman 11y ago

I feel kind shamefully guilty now. I'm sorry.