Yesterday the link worked. Today the same two commands produce a different address, and the client is holding a dead link and a poor opinion of your reliability. Nothing is broken. This is exactly how free tunnel tiers are designed to work — here is why, and what your real options are.
The changing address is the most common complaint about the two-command method, and the most misunderstood. On free tiers, the public URL is lent to your session, not owned by you. Start the tunnel, borrow an address. Stop it, hand the address back. Understanding that one sentence converts a recurring frustration into a simple workflow — and tells you exactly when to stop borrowing and start owning.
Illustrative addresses. Free tiers hand out a fresh random subdomain each time the tunnel starts.
A permanent, personal web address is a genuinely valuable thing — scarce, memorable and yours. Free tiers keep it scarce deliberately. Random per-session addresses make a perfect free sample: full power for an afternoon, nothing you can build a business on. There is a second, quieter reason that works in your favour: a dead address can never be probed tomorrow. The churn that annoys you is also the free tier pushing you, honestly, toward either short sessions or a paid arrangement.
Creating an account with the tunnel service — often still free — commonly unlocks the steadier options: a reserved subdomain that is yours across sessions, or the ability to connect a domain you own, sometimes on the paid tier. The exact offers change frequently, so read your service's current plans page rather than trusting any article, including this one. One warning travels with the upgrade: the account and its token are now standing credentials for tunnels into your PC, so the security checklist in this set — strong password, two-factor authentication, token kept secret — matters more, not less.
If an address must never change — it is printed somewhere, bookmarked by a team, or built into how clients reach you — it has to be an address you own: your own domain name. That domain can point at a tunnel for a while, but the honest destination for a permanent address is real hosting, where the address, the uptime and the security are somebody's actual job. A domain costs little per year and is the one piece of this entire setup that nobody can reshuffle, revoke or lend to someone else next week.
For demos, the churn is secretly a feature. Every session gets a fresh link; every old link dies on its own without you lifting a finger — yesterday's forwarded, screenshotted, forgotten link is already harmless. Build the habit that matches: generate the link at demo time, send it fresh with its time window, and never print it anywhere permanent. Clients adapt to this rhythm immediately once they see it works, and your old links stop being a liability you have to track.
The one hard rule: a free tunnel URL must never appear in a product, a document you hand over, an app configuration, a resume or a printed card. It will be dead when someone tries it — or worse, on some services a recycled address can eventually point at a stranger's tunnel, wearing your printed name. Anything that must live at one address gets hosting or a domain you control. The borrowed address is a meeting room you rent by the hour; do not engrave it on the building.
Watch the video to see a fresh public URL appear the moment the tunnel starts — and notice how the workflow assumes you will send that link out immediately.
Watch Full VideoGenerally, no. When the session ends, the random address returns to the pool, and the next session draws a new one. Some services hold an address briefly or offer a reserved subdomain on an account tier, but the behaviour to plan your work around is the simple one: new session, new link, every time.
Your machine is safe: the moment your tunnel closes, the old address reaches nothing of yours. The remaining risk is confusion — and, on some services, an address being lent to someone else later, so the stranger who clicks your old printed link may land on a stranger's page. One more reason borrowed addresses never go in print.
Start with the free account at your tunnel service and check whether its account tier includes a reserved subdomain — many do, and that solves demo links completely. If it does not, the honest cheap step is a low-cost domain of your own, which permanently upgrades you from borrowed addresses to an address you control.