Privacy-focused QR generator?

February 4, 2020 10:00 AM

I need to generate some QR codes for work and there are dozens of QR code generators. Is there a "best of field" generator that is privacy-conscious and doesn't track anything? Most of the sites I've found don't have https:// or privacy policies, which raises red flags.
posted by melodykramer to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

Best answer: In this case I would personally use one that's open source and that I could download rather than using an app on a website. This one looks promising-- demo, gallery of demoing, Github repo of Python version (the one I could scan the quickest for reasonableness), available on PyPi
posted by supercres at 10:56 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]

Best answer: The demo supercres linked above makes no network calls while generating the QR code, meaning that the code for generating it runs entirely in the browser. If you use adblock (or at least uBlock Origin), it will also disable the Google Analytics script on the page. If you aren't interested in getting that python code to work, the QR codes generated by that website should be reasonably private. The most that a person could tell (assuming they have access to server access logs) is that someone visited the QR code generator, not what they generated.

That said, if you want to be absolutely sure that no tracking is occuring, inspecting and running the code locally is what you'd need to do.
posted by Aleyn at 11:36 AM on February 4, 2020

Does it need to be web-based? All the versions of Inkscape I've used recently have had the option under Extensions→Render→Barcode→QR Code...
posted by XMLicious at 1:21 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]

Best answer: The Debian qrencode package doesn't phone home, and just encodes the text you ask it to, so a direct link is a direct link. Point yer phone camera at this if you don't believe me:

$ qrencode -i -t UTF8 'https://ask.metafilter.com/341652/Privacy-focused-QR-generator'
█████████████████████████████████████
█████████████████████████████████████
████ ▄▄▄▄▄ █ ██▀▀ ▀▀ ▄ ▄▄█ ▄▄▄▄▄ ████
████ █   █ █  ▀█ █ █▄ ▀▀██ █   █ ████
████ █▄▄▄█ █▀  █▄ ██ ▄▀▄ █ █▄▄▄█ ████
████▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█▄█ ▀▄█▄▀ ▀ █ █▄▄▄▄▄▄▄████
████ ▄██ ▄▄███▄█▄█▀ ██  █▀█ ▀▄ ▄▄████
██████▄▀█▄▄▄  ▄█▀ █▄█▄█ ██▄▀ █▄█ ████
████ ▀▀█▀█▄ ▀▀▀▄▀ ▄▀███ ▄▀▄████▄▀████
████▄█▀▀▄█▄███▄ ▄█▀ █▀█▀█▀▀▀█ ▀▀▄████
████▀▀▀▄▄█▄▄▀█ █▄█▄  ▀▀▄██ ▄▄▀ █ ████
██████▄ ▄ ▄ ▀▀▀█▀ ▀▄ ▀▄ ▀▀  ▄ ▀▄▀████
████▄▄▄▄▄█▄█  ▄▄▀▀█ ▀▄█▀ ▄▄▄ █▄▀▀████
████ ▄▄▄▄▄ █▀▀█ ▄█▀▀ ▀▄▀ █▄█ ▀▄▄▄████
████ █   █ █▄▀▄█▄▄▀ ▀▄    ▄ ▄█▀ ▄████
████ █▄▄▄█ █▀█▄█▀█▄▄█▀▀ ▀▀█▄  ▀ ▄████
████▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█▄██▄▄▄▄█▄███▄▄▄▄█▄▄██████
█████████████████████████████████████
█████████████████████████████████████

It'll output PNG, SVG, text, etc. And yes, I used the -i option to save a few pixels and encode the URL as case-insensitive as they really should be …
posted by scruss at 1:40 PM on February 4, 2020 [8 favorites]

Best answer: Seconding answers upthread which suggest that a local, 100%-offline solution is the way to go.

I've gotten a lot of use out of the Barcode Writer in Pure PostScript. If you need to programmatically generate printable documents with dynamic barcodes in them, it's a low-hassle solution that supports lots of symbologies.

There's a quick-start guide available.
posted by sourcequench at 9:31 AM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]

Adobe Indesign will output QR codes (if you happen to have a license for that product).
posted by jeffmilner at 12:26 PM on February 5, 2020

Response by poster: Thanks supercres. That worked! (Also: hi!)
posted by melodykramer at 12:25 PM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]