t4mer@notebook

// til · til · 12 august 2026 · 1 min

TIL: aka.ms is actually a Microsoft domain

A tiny explanation of Microsoft's URL-shortening domain.

I had seen aka.ms links for years and filed them, lazily, under “some URL shortener Microsoft employees use”. That is not wrong, but it is incomplete.

aka.ms is a Microsoft-owned domain. It is their official short link service. The ms is not a random ccTLD coincidence you should distrust by default; it is Microsoft’s namespace.

This matters slightly more than trivia:

  • A lot of documentation, Azure, Visual Studio, and Microsoft Learn links go through it.
  • Treating every shortener as equally suspicious is healthy. Treating aka.ms as unknown is how you waste ten minutes looking for the “real” domain.
  • It is still a redirect. The destination can be a download, a docs page, or something you should still glance at.

I wrote this down because I caught myself hovering a Qt installer link, frowning, and nearly not clicking it because the domain looked like a brand impersonation. It was not.

Found something wrong?

These notes can be incomplete, or wrong in a different environment. Suggest a correction on GitHub or email me at me@t4mer.net.

// related

// til

TIL: QML describes the UI tree. C++ still runs the process.

Designer not editing your screen is often the first clue that you are not in a Widgets project.

// til

TIL: Qt is the toolkit. C++ is the language.

Search results get worse when you ask the toolkit to be a language.

// til

TIL: what CMake actually does

CMake does not compile your program. It generates the build that compiles your program.