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Glossary

IDN & Punycode

An internationalized domain name (IDN) uses characters beyond A–Z, like ü, я or 中. The DNS itself only stores ASCII, so IDNs are converted to Punycode: an ASCII form that starts with "xn--". The TLD .рф, for example, is stored as xn--p1ai.

Browsers convert between the two forms automatically. Because some characters look alike across scripts, browsers sometimes show the xn-- form instead, to protect people from look-alike phishing domains.

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Examples