An independent, open-source project
Looks right.
Look again.
One look-alike letter can change an entire address. We’re making the little differences easier to see.
U+0061CYRILLIC
U+0430
01 / The problem
A familiar name.
An unfamiliar destination.
A link can borrow the appearance of a name you know. Some letters in different writing systems look remarkably alike. Swapping one can create an entirely different domain.
These are called homograph attacks. The characters are real. The deception is in how they’re used.
paypal.com
раypal.com
The second example starts with Cyrillic р and а. These examples are displayed as text, so there’s nothing to accidentally visit.
Different languages aren’t the problem. Unicode makes a multilingual internet possible. A non-Latin letter isn’t evidence of fraud; context and the exact address matter.
02 / The character lab
Go beneath
the surface.
A tiny lab for a closer look. Choose an example or enter text to reveal its Unicode code points and writing systems.
Every character, revealed.
This is an educational character inspector. It doesn’t visit addresses, check website reputation, or determine whether a link is safe.
03 / The project
Small details.
Shared responsibility.
GlyphGuardian began with a simple idea: make character-level deception easier to recognize. Created by Alec / WhyTrashEarth, it brings security, design, and accessibility into the same conversation.
This website and character lab are an early step. Research is ongoing, and browser protection remains a development goal.
Read the project roadmapMake the invisible visible.
Clear examples and a browser-local character lab.
Understand the edge cases.
Study confusable characters, international domains, and false positives.
Bring it to the browser.
Explore extensions and practical ways to surface suspicious differences.
Built in the open. Better together.
Got an eye
for the details?
Help test an example, improve accessibility, contribute code, or ask a question. The conversation lives on GitHub.
A little acknowledgment.
Thank you to the Porkbun team for early feedback and suggestions that helped shape GlyphGuardian.