• WoofWoof91 [comrade/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Has anyone actually used a qr code for anything useful?
    When they were first becoming a thing, i used them to buy bus tickets but it was more of a novelty than anything

    • blobjim [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I think they're awesome. They're an optical, better version of barcodes. I'm sure there's a bunch of specific industrial use cases. What's cool about them is the error correction so you can do stuff like this where the middle is carved out. There's also a standard way of sharing Wi-Fi networks as QR codes, so you could have a QR code of your home Wi-Fi network SSID/password to share with guests instead of having to dictate it to them.

    • Marxist_Lentilism [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      QR codes were invented as a way to trick graphic designers to put blotches of static on things

    • buh [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I use them pretty regularly to quickly open a webpage I have open on a desktop browser on a smartphone, by using an extension that generates a QR code of the URL

    • ajouter [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      if anything they seem to be getting more popular recently. Restaurants have QR codes on the tables now for accessing menus, many countries use QR codes for Covid passes, lots of countries use a QR code digital signature for government form authenticity. Seems like they might have gotten their start for making purchases in Asia or a gimmick on a bus stop poster but they're used for a bunch of things now.

    • Mizokon [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      It's very commonly used in "developing" countries like China and India for payments cuz most cheap smartphones don't have NFC

    • viva_la_juche [they/them, any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      We have a printed one at my work to get clients to follow without having to do the whole searching through ig thing

      And we put them on cards to hand out at shows in my band when we perform

      And plane/concert tickets here and tbere

    • nine_leven [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Sharing multi-factor authentication secrets and transmitting small bits of information from a computer to a smartphone are their primary use cases for me.

      SQRL (Secure Quick Reliable Login) is a password-less authentication protocol developed by GRC that's awesome and uses QR codes if you use a smartphone SQRL client, but it'll probably never catch on.