If you're wondering whether furbo.org is a scam, the short answer is no — it's a long-running personal blog written by Craig Hockenberry, a respected software developer and writer. Unlike commercial sites, a personal blog has no need for privacy policies or terms of service, so their absence here is perfectly normal. What matters more is the site's track record: the domain was created in 1999, there are years of content archived on the Wayback Machine, and the site has been shared on Hacker News for well over a decade. That kind of consistent, public history is hard to fake. The site uses modern HTTPS encryption and has never appeared on any malware blacklists. If you're reading furbo.org for tech writing, app development insights, or personal essays, you can trust that you're on a legitimate site run by a real person — not a copycat or a scam.
In plain English
This is Craig Hockenberry's personal blog, and it's been around since 1999 — that kind of longevity is a strong sign of legitimacy. The security is solid, the reputation is clean, and the site is transparent about who runs it. There are no red flags here; it's safe to browse and read.
Where the score comes from
Modern encryption with HSTS enforcement and a clean record from Google's threat detection. Nothing about this setup raises concern for a personal site.
The domain has been registered for 27 years and is clearly tied to a named individual (Craig Hockenberry). Privacy registration is standard for personal blogs and doesn't hide a business.
Extensive web archive history, Hacker News mentions going back to 2008, real Chrome traffic, and no blacklisting. This site has a long, positive track record.
The site has a detailed about page, contact link, and social media presence. It's clear who runs it and how to reach them — exactly what you'd expect from a personal blog.
No privacy policy or terms of service, but that's normal for a non-commercial personal blog. There's no data collection or financial activity that would require them.
Basic but reliable hosting on a reputable provider. No email handling (fine for a blog), and DNSSEC isn't enabled, but these are minor gaps for a site that's been online for decades without issue.
What we checked
Security & Transport
Certificate issued by Let's Encrypt
No threats detected by Google Web Risk
Site enforces HTTPS via HSTS
Cloudflare's malware-blocking resolver (1.1.1.2) answered normally for this domain. These resolvers refuse domains their threat intelligence lists for malware or phishing, and a scam only days old often isn't listed yet. Quad9 gave no usable answer.
Valid certificate, expires in 66 days
Neither a visitor arriving from a Google search nor Google's crawler was sent elsewhere or shown spam that a direct visit wasn't. Cloaking that checks the visitor's network address can't be seen from our server.
Site sets some security response headers: HSTS
Web server: nginx
Connection uses TLS 1.3
Identity & WHOIS
Site publishes an About / Team / Company page — a transparency signal that the operator is willing to describe who runs the business.
Site has custom branding and social media metadata
No dedicated legal-entity disclosure page detected — common and expected outside the EU, but required for commercial sites in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and other EU jurisdictions.
Homepage has a contact page link
Domain created 1999-08-21 (27 years, 2 months ago)
Expires in 294 days
No privacy policy or terms of service found — expected for commercial sites, normal for personal blogs and hobby projects
The registration shows a privacy service or redaction notice in place of the owner. Most registrars do this by default since GDPR (2018), for companies as well as individuals, so it hides nothing unusual.
Registered through NameCheap, Inc.
Infrastructure & DNS
Not listed by SpamCop and Barracuda, the blacklists that answered
Resolves to: 45.33.2.205
Domain is not signed with DNSSEC
DNSSEC status from WHOIS
No MX records found — domain may not handle email
Hosted on: AS63949 AKAMAI-LINODE-AP Akamai Connected Cloud (SG)
DNS providers: dns1.registrar-servers.com., dns2.registrar-servers.com.
Fast page load, timed once from our server in Europe including the DNS lookup, connection setup and any redirects
Site is built on WordPress
Reputation & Reach
Hacker News readers upvoted links to this site in 14 different years between 2008 and 2026. The most upvoted, "The Shit Show" (2023), got 723 points.
og:type declared as website
HTML declares lang="en-US"
Google's Chrome UX Report publishes data for https://furbo.org, which it only does once enough distinct real Chrome users have visited over the last 28 days.
Site maintains a proper sitemap with 5 indexed pages
Homepage links to profiles on Mastodon
No structured data markup found
This site appears in the top 1 million websites
Earliest archive snapshot from 20070701
Website is live and responding
robots.txt has 2 directives
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