I got scammed by a dishonest QR code generator and decided to build an honest one.

I recently got caught out by a “free” QR code generator.

I needed a QR code, and I thought it would be fun to put the logo of the thing I was promoting in the middle of it. So I found a QR code generator which had an option to insert a logo. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice that the QR it generated didn’t link directly to my site, but redirected through the site generating the QR. Worse, it did not make it clear that I was using a 7 day “free trial”, and after a week, the QR stopped redirecting unless I gave them money.

I’m not supporting deceptive marketing practices, so they can sod off.

So I decided I’d never get stung by that particular game again, so I’d build my own QR generator, with a little help form Claude Code. And just for fun, rather than use an off-the-shelf QR library, I decided to build it from scratch, and write my own QR algorithm. Which turned out to be a great learning experience. I’m not sure that I could do it again without Claude’s assistance, but I understand a whole lot more about how QR codes than I did before.

If you want QR codes with logos in, feel free to play with it… Honest QR.

And if you’re interested, the source code is here on GitHub.

It will never redirect through an intermediate site, use “bait and switch” marketing practices, or try anything dodgy. In fact, since it’s a react app, the QR codes are generated entirely within your browser, so I don’t even track what you’re using it for.

Fun fact… did you know that there’s no special magic to QR codes with an embedded logo? They just use the error correction of the QR to recover from the image covering a section of the QR.