FriendlyIP: an address you can read over the phone

Reading an IP address over the phone is a small task that gets awkward surprisingly quickly. FriendlyIP turns an IPv4 address into a six-character code, using an alphabet chosen to avoid several easily confused characters. The other person can turn the code back into the address.

The useful part of the IPv4 design is that it doesn't need a lookup database. The address is represented as a number and encoded reversibly. The browser can do that conversion locally, so the core tool doesn't depend on creating a saved short-link record for each address.

The retained source snapshot also includes three related paths. IPv6 beta uses online database-backed lookup codes. FriendlyPIN creates temporary codes with a one-hour lifetime. The QR page generates an SVG code in the browser. They belong in the same family, but they don't all have the same storage and connectivity requirements.

That distinction matters if you're choosing a tool for a quick LAN setup or another handoff. A short code is a convenient representation of an address; it doesn't itself make the machine reachable, change router configuration or provide authentication.

The dated September 14 website record confirms the product files were present and compared with their server copies before navigation work. It doesn't establish when each core feature was first created, so I'm using this as a documented snapshot rather than inventing an earlier release sequence.

What I like about FriendlyIP is that the central idea stays easy to explain. Make an address less annoying to share, keep the reversible IPv4 tool simple, and label the online beta features clearly. Broader feature-specific runtime and expiry checks remain useful next work beyond the website verification described here.