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Someone on Reddit asked how I make a living. Might be interesting for folks here too. Right now, we're living off our savings and my wife's salary. Both sites

by pul 5y ago

Someone on Reddit asked how I make a living. Might be interesting for folks here too. Right now, we're living off our savings and my wife's salary. Both sites are already profitable, though. I've recently launched an API for NsLookup, which now generates around 100 USD / month, and both sites have ads that generate income. Not enough to replace my salary yet, but I'm confident I can increase it over time. Ads have a bad connotation, mainly because they often track users across the web. Mine don't. For WhoIsMyISP.org, I've partnered with NordVPN, and have their ads with plain `<a href=...><img /></a>`. And for NsLookup.io, I've joined the Carbon network, which also doesn't have tracking.

DocTomoe 5y ago
I hope the ad images are also hosted on your server, or they still can be tracking. Not criticism. I applaud your approach. I just point out that running non-tracking ads is harder than you would believe.
- pul 5y ago
  Hmm, not that I've taken a second look, I noticed that I added a hidden image hosted on their servers when I implemented the ads. It's used for counting the ad impressions, but it looks like it drops a 1-day valid cookie as well :/
  - adolph 5y ago
    Good luck standing between those tricksy ad-folk and their quarry.
    - nr2x 5y ago
      It's called tracking for a reason.
  - weird-eye-issue 5y ago
    It's a little funny to me you added a literal tracking pixel to your website from a VPN company and then came to HN to preach that you don't do any tracking That said, due to third party cookie changes, tracking pixels have very limited usefulness these days and it's unlikely it actually tracks people over a full 1 day period
    - pul 5y ago
      I guess you're right.. And indeed, browsers fight back: https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2021/01/26/supercookie-protections/ https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2021/01/26/supercookie-pro...
      - weird-eye-issue 5y ago
        Safari started the trend 2-3 years ago
stanislavb 5y ago
Good luck, mate! If you bother to verify NsLookup.io on SaaSHub, I can get it on its weekly newsletter. That could help you a bit. (just ping me by email/twitter once done). Cheers!
- pul 5y ago
  Thanks for the offer :) I already submitted it a while ago: https://www.saashub.com/nslookup-io-alternatives https://www.saashub.com/nslookup-io-alternatives
weird-eye-issue 5y ago
Are you not concerned that you are leaking exactly what domains people are looking up in realtime? If I used a service like that I would expect some degree of privacy that goes beyond this. It's crazy to me that you're doing this to be honest https://plausible.io/nslookup.io/pages?period=realtime https://plausible.io/nslookup.io/pages?period=realtime
- teh_klev 5y ago
  There is no privacy issue here, there aren't source IP addresses attached, you can't tell who's looking these up. It's up there with Amazon's (for example) "other people bought" recommendations, you can't tell who did the looking up. They're just domain names which are effectively public records. And even if you thought you registered a super secret domain name (no such thing), maybe the registrar looked it up, or some bot found it through brute force (if nslookup.io is open to bots).
  - hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
    What if someone looks up an internal domain which is actually publicly exposed. Granted they shouldn’t be secret, doesn’t mean you should broadcast them publicly.
    - pul 5y ago
      Internal domains generally resolve to private IP ranges, so don't do any harm when broadcasted. Besides, many people use Chrome, and who knows what they do by default with browsing history.
      - hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
        You’ve obviously never seen orgs with /16 IP ranges, or developers/ops accidentally screw up, for that matter. Chrome don’t actively publish nslookups on public sites. I think you’ve missed the point.
      - antonvs 5y ago
waffle_maniac 5y ago
Have you considered signing up as a Brave creator? Could generate more income from those that have auto contribute turned on.
- osrec 5y ago
  Do enough people use that browser to make it worthwhile?
  - dudus 5y ago
    No.
    - moepstar 5y ago
      Oh, only 50+ million monthly active users as of January 2022 - who will both earn BAT and, by default, contribute back automatically...
      - ffpip 5y ago
        BAT isn't turned on by default so the number will be a lot lower than 50 million. And I expect most people to turn off auto contribution to keep the money themselves or manually contribute to sites they like.
    - pul 5y ago
      I can confirm. I earn about 2-3 BAT (€1.5 - €2) each month for nslookup.io (without serving Brave ads) and whoismyisp.org (with Brave ads) combined. That's ~1M page views across all browsers. Not lucrative at all ;)
- pul 5y ago
  I have. In fact, you can check this for any site using nslookup.io ;) (so meta) See the TXT records at https://www.nslookup.io/dns-records/nslookup.io https://www.nslookup.io/dns-records/nslookup.io
kingcharles 5y ago
I broke nslookup.io when I entered one of my emoji domains :)
- pul 5y ago
  Which one? Because I explicitly added support for that and tested it.
rogual 5y ago
FYI, WhoIsMyISP.org tells me the name of my city is my ISP, "also known as" the actual ISP name.

by pul 5y ago

DocTomoe 5y ago

I hope the ad images are also hosted on your server, or they still can be tracking. Not criticism. I applaud your approach. I just point out that running non-tracking ads is harder than you would believe.

pul 5y ago
Hmm, not that I've taken a second look, I noticed that I added a hidden image hosted on their servers when I implemented the ads. It's used for counting the ad impressions, but it looks like it drops a 1-day valid cookie as well :/
- adolph 5y ago
  Good luck standing between those tricksy ad-folk and their quarry.
  - nr2x 5y ago
    It's called tracking for a reason.
- weird-eye-issue 5y ago
  It's a little funny to me you added a literal tracking pixel to your website from a VPN company and then came to HN to preach that you don't do any tracking That said, due to third party cookie changes, tracking pixels have very limited usefulness these days and it's unlikely it actually tracks people over a full 1 day period
  - pul 5y ago
    I guess you're right.. And indeed, browsers fight back: https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2021/01/26/supercookie-protections/ https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2021/01/26/supercookie-pro...
    - weird-eye-issue 5y ago
      Safari started the trend 2-3 years ago

stanislavb 5y ago

Good luck, mate! If you bother to verify NsLookup.io on SaaSHub, I can get it on its weekly newsletter. That could help you a bit. (just ping me by email/twitter once done). Cheers!

pul 5y ago
Thanks for the offer :) I already submitted it a while ago: https://www.saashub.com/nslookup-io-alternatives https://www.saashub.com/nslookup-io-alternatives

weird-eye-issue 5y ago

Are you not concerned that you are leaking exactly what domains people are looking up in realtime? If I used a service like that I would expect some degree of privacy that goes beyond this. It's crazy to me that you're doing this to be honest https://plausible.io/nslookup.io/pages?period=realtime https://plausible.io/nslookup.io/pages?period=realtime

teh_klev 5y ago
There is no privacy issue here, there aren't source IP addresses attached, you can't tell who's looking these up. It's up there with Amazon's (for example) "other people bought" recommendations, you can't tell who did the looking up. They're just domain names which are effectively public records. And even if you thought you registered a super secret domain name (no such thing), maybe the registrar looked it up, or some bot found it through brute force (if nslookup.io is open to bots).
- hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
  What if someone looks up an internal domain which is actually publicly exposed. Granted they shouldn’t be secret, doesn’t mean you should broadcast them publicly.
  - pul 5y ago
    Internal domains generally resolve to private IP ranges, so don't do any harm when broadcasted. Besides, many people use Chrome, and who knows what they do by default with browsing history.
    - hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
      You’ve obviously never seen orgs with /16 IP ranges, or developers/ops accidentally screw up, for that matter. Chrome don’t actively publish nslookups on public sites. I think you’ve missed the point.
    - antonvs 5y ago

waffle_maniac 5y ago

Have you considered signing up as a Brave creator? Could generate more income from those that have auto contribute turned on.

osrec 5y ago
Do enough people use that browser to make it worthwhile?
- dudus 5y ago
  No.
  - moepstar 5y ago
    Oh, only 50+ million monthly active users as of January 2022 - who will both earn BAT and, by default, contribute back automatically...
    - ffpip 5y ago
      BAT isn't turned on by default so the number will be a lot lower than 50 million. And I expect most people to turn off auto contribution to keep the money themselves or manually contribute to sites they like.
  - pul 5y ago
    I can confirm. I earn about 2-3 BAT (€1.5 - €2) each month for nslookup.io (without serving Brave ads) and whoismyisp.org (with Brave ads) combined. That's ~1M page views across all browsers. Not lucrative at all ;)
pul 5y ago
I have. In fact, you can check this for any site using nslookup.io ;) (so meta) See the TXT records at https://www.nslookup.io/dns-records/nslookup.io https://www.nslookup.io/dns-records/nslookup.io

kingcharles 5y ago

I broke nslookup.io when I entered one of my emoji domains :)

pul 5y ago
Which one? Because I explicitly added support for that and tested it.

rogual 5y ago

FYI, WhoIsMyISP.org tells me the name of my city is my ISP, "also known as" the actual ISP name.