We’ve all dealt with them over the past 10 years. The rise in usage of QR codes, or quick-response codes, has been incredibly noticeable. These are codes that you scan with your phone to display pieces of information, such as hyperlinks, text, photos or videos, and more.
The codes have stored information that becomes easier to access once you’ve taken your phone out, opened your camera, and pretended to take a photo of them. You’ve probably had to take your phone out at a restaurant just to scan a menu to see what it’s like. This became more prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic, when shared physical items like menus were used less and less. There are QR codes for almost anything these days and they are relied on by major manufacturers. So why are they still working after all these years?
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QR codes have become extremely popular
They are used by so many
Credit: Bilanol / Shutterstock
Whether you need to scan one at a table or you’re reading the directions for a new piece of furniture you’ve purchased and there’s a QR code to bring you to the instruction manual online, you’ve been required to pull your phone out and activate one. Using QR codes means that you can share information with a few people or a large number and they can all get the same outcome.
There are many creative ways to use QR codes. Maybe you’ve been on a bachelor or bachelorette party and used a QR code to have people send the bride or groom a drink. The possibilities are endless and they are easy to set up. There are plenty of apps and software that create QR codes.
Canva and Adobe Express can create them, allowing you to work them into your designs. You can even use your own Google Chrome browser to create one.
Go to a website that you want to share. Click the three-dot menu on the right side. Go down to the Cast, Save, and Share button and click on that. From there, click Create a QR Code and Google will create a unique one for the site for you to share.
Google Chrome was used as an example because it’s the most popular browser in the world. Other Chromium-based browsers like Brave, Opera, and Edge can also create QR codes.
There are many ways to create QR codes and there’s a reason why we aren’t going to run out of them any time soon.
OS
Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS/iPadOS, ChromeOS
Developer
Google LLC
Price model
Free
Google Chrome allows you to create QR codes for links by going through the share menu. It populates a QR code that shows up on the screen.
Static codes aren’t going away
All you need to do is change a small portion
A standard QR code can hold up to 3KB of data. While that may not seem like a lot, it amounts to near-endless possibilities, as it’s well over 7,000 numeric characters. That doesn’t include alphanumeric characters either, giving you more ammo for your codes.
There are also 40 different versions of a standard QR code. These are based on the amount of modules in the QR code. Version 1 is a 21 x 21 module QR code while Version 40 is a 177 x 177 module code. This allows you to choose the amount of characters that you want to include in your QR code and go from there.
The more characters there are, the bigger the version. For less complex links or text that doesn’t use up a lot of characters, the smaller the version is.
If you have a short URL, you’re likely going to have a more basic version of your QR code. The standard QR code is the two-dimensional matrix barcode that most people know today. Because there are so many ways to create a QR code, there are a near-infinite number of ways to have one look. This is why we haven’t run out of QR codes yet. It’s also why people might not think twice about scanning one, making them a good window for malicious activity.
However, these aren’t the only types of QR codes, as dynamic QR codes also exist. Dynamic QR codes can be reused, so they’ll never go out of style.
Dynamic QR codes can be changed after the fact
This adds to more possibilities
Credit: Chris Hachey / MakeUseOf
A dynamic QR code is just like a standard one. It stores information and data in its matrix. However, that information is a short, editable URL instead of the static information in a standard code.
Dynamic QR codes bring someone to a server-side redirect when they scan it. This means that the final destination link can be changed at any point, as the code itself points to one place before it is redirected. What it’s redirected to is up to you and that’s how you can get use out of the same code.
Because of this, you can use that QR code to track the location of a device, the time it scans it, and the kind of device used to scan the code. This is how restaurants can take you to the landing page of a menu, but then they can change the menu and the redirection without having to reprint their QR codes on their table.
So, even if you have used a QR code previously for one thing, you can get more use out of it by changing the link that it redirects to. This is another reason why QR codes won’t outlast their lives.
QR codes aren’t going anywhere any time soon
The technology behind QR codes is simple but effective. They can be utilized for all kinds of reasons, including bad ones like quishing attacks, and they offer easy access to anyone who has a camera phone. Being able to create your own quickly and then change them on a whim makes QR codes endlessly usable.
