PuTTY Website Warning

A user on Mastodon has reported a serious concern about the PuTTY website. While I have never identified do ed the PuTTY website prior to this morning EDT, I have been able to learn about the true PuTTY website while also identifying that the putty.org domain is illegitimate and not associated with the real domain.

Simon Tatham

@simontatham@hachyderm.io

General reminder:

The domain name putty.org is *NOT* run by the #PuTTY developers. It is run by somebody not associated with us, who uses the domain to interpose advertising for their unrelated commercial products. We do not endorse those products in any way, and we have never given any kind of agreement for PuTTY's name to be used in promoting them.

Please do not perpetuate the claim that putty.org is the PuTTY website. If anyone is linking to it on that basis, please change the link. The PuTTY website is https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ and it always has been.

You can check this by downloading the source code, which cites that URL in many places (the README, the documentation, some strings in the actual code), or by using the "Visit Web Site" menu options in the official Windows binaries (the ones signed with my personal Authenticode certificate). The true PuTTY website is the one that PuTTY itself says it is.

Many search engines list putty.org above chiark. I don't know if this is due to active SEO on the part of the domain owner, or a heuristic in the rankings. Either way, don't believe them. It's not our site.

July 13, 2025, 12:52 pm 368 boosts 218 favorites