<![CDATA[nixers - The WWW]]> https://nixers.net/ Fri, 08 May 2026 15:53:10 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA[webring ideas]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-webring-ideas Fri, 27 Oct 2023 15:05:00 +0000 yakumo.izuru]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-webring-ideas
Quote:A webring (or web ring) is a collection of websites linked together in a circular structure, and usually organized around a specific theme, often educational or social.[1] They were popular in the 1990s and early 2000s, particularly among amateur websites.

With that in mind, considering that webrings at this age are more or less dead, and there was one guy who went to make one for ActivityPub users. I thought of something different on a XMPP room of mine after reading a post from Russ Cox that z3bra posted in #nixers.

Quote:webring idea: everyone uses qrcodes made with the above and we don't even need link to each other, only the codes have to be shared

And I began doing that using the WebAssembly qart generator for three of my sites.

Examples:
[Image: 653ae51345503cb283716a28.png?web]

This one points to chaotic.ninja

What do you think about it?]]>
Quote:A webring (or web ring) is a collection of websites linked together in a circular structure, and usually organized around a specific theme, often educational or social.[1] They were popular in the 1990s and early 2000s, particularly among amateur websites.

With that in mind, considering that webrings at this age are more or less dead, and there was one guy who went to make one for ActivityPub users. I thought of something different on a XMPP room of mine after reading a post from Russ Cox that z3bra posted in #nixers.

Quote:webring idea: everyone uses qrcodes made with the above and we don't even need link to each other, only the codes have to be shared

And I began doing that using the WebAssembly qart generator for three of my sites.

Examples:
[Image: 653ae51345503cb283716a28.png?web]

This one points to chaotic.ninja

What do you think about it?]]> <![CDATA[Lighter versions of sites]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-Lighter-versions-of-sites Fri, 28 Aug 2020 16:10:22 +0000 s0kx]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-Lighter-versions-of-sites Normal: https://duckduckgo.com/
Javascriptless: https://html.duckduckgo.com (you will get redirected here with noscript.)
Super bare-bones: https://lite.duckduckgo.com (you will get redirected here with a cli browser.)

I think these simpler sites aren't getting the attention they deserve, so if you have any similar links please share them here. Unofficial sites like https://invidio.us/ are also welcome.]]> Normal: https://duckduckgo.com/
Javascriptless: https://html.duckduckgo.com (you will get redirected here with noscript.)
Super bare-bones: https://lite.duckduckgo.com (you will get redirected here with a cli browser.)

I think these simpler sites aren't getting the attention they deserve, so if you have any similar links please share them here. Unofficial sites like https://invidio.us/ are also welcome.]]> <![CDATA[Fun with domain names]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-Fun-with-domain-names Mon, 24 Aug 2020 11:25:15 +0000 venam]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-Fun-with-domain-names This thread is simply a write-up about a fun experiment we did on IRC, putting an ephemeral conversation into ink.
Pasting any of the following in your browser URL bar redirects/resolves to nixers.net:
Code:
https://π•Ÿπ•šπ•©π•–π•£π•€.π•Ÿπ•–π•₯
https://β“β“˜β“§β“”β“‘β“’.ⓝⓔⓣ
https://𝐧𝐒𝐱𝐞𝐫𝐬.𝐧𝐞𝐭
https://π–“π–Žπ–π–Šπ–—π–˜.π–“π–Šπ–™

Interesting, so at which level does the conversion happens, we know DNS only supports ascii and would actually convert unicode to punycode if it encounted some.
The same behavior happens with curl and dig, and snooping it with wireshark shows that the actual request sent for A is nixers.net.

Code:
dig @8.8.8.8 A β“β“˜β“§β“”β“‘β“’.ⓝⓔⓣ

My guess, is that DNS doesn't actually handle such wide characters but that the tool fallback on a library that does the normalization for them.

Let's test if the DNS resolves by packing our own request and sniffing it with wireshark:

Code:
echo -n -e
"\x13\x37\x01\x00\x00\x01\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x18π–“π–Žπ–π–Šπ–—π–˜\x0cπ–“π–Šπ–™\x00\x00\x01\x00\x01" | nc -u -w1 8.8.8.8 53
(Replace Google's DNS with your favorite one)

And nope, it doesn't work, we get a server error:

[Image: tvx7ozx.png]

So it's a local conversion to ascii, using normalization.
From the command line you can test using the following:

Code:
> iconv -f utf-8 -t ascii//TRANSLIT <<<π–“π–Žπ–π–Šπ–—π–˜.π–“π–Šπ–™
nixers.net

And that explains our initial issue. However, I'm still wondering which library does the conversion in all these tools, let me know if you find it, my strace log was too big and I didn't want to parse it.

EDIT: I've actually found where the DNS translation is done in all these tools, they rely on getaddrinfo(3) and other OS libs.
So it start from getaddrinfo to then either calls __idna_to_dns_encoding or __idna_to_ascii_lz depending on the version (my guess), which relies on libidn. So libidn is doing all the dirty work.

Code:
~ > ldd $(which curl) | grep libidn
    libidn2.so.0 => /usr/lib/libidn2.so.0 (0x00007fe303ea0000)

You can actually test it on the command line too, similar to uconv:
Code:
> idn --idna-to-ascii 'https://𝐧𝐒𝐱𝐞𝐫𝐬.𝐧𝐞𝐭'
https://nixers.net

The relevant part of the getaddrinfo docs:
Code:
AI_IDN If  this flag is specified, then the node name given in node is converted
              to IDN format if necessary.  The source encoding is that of  the  current
              locale.

              If the input name contains non-ASCII characters, then the IDN encoding is
              used.  Those parts of the node name (delimited by dots) that contain non-
              ASCII characters are encoded using ASCII Compatible Encoding (ACE) before
              being passed to the name resolution functions.

Other interesting thing you can do with browsers and domain names:
  • Point your domain name to 127.0.0.1, trick the user if they have currently a server running locally
  • Representing the IP in different form such as a single 4B integer: http://2990468176 or multiple Bytes. Even though it isn't in the URL standard
  • The usual homoglyph attack, using characters that could be confused with other ones, for example: https://paypal.com@2990468176

Yep, the web is kind of complicated...

The forums now support unicode proplerly, it's magic!
]]> This thread is simply a write-up about a fun experiment we did on IRC, putting an ephemeral conversation into ink.
Pasting any of the following in your browser URL bar redirects/resolves to nixers.net:
Code:
https://π•Ÿπ•šπ•©π•–π•£π•€.π•Ÿπ•–π•₯
https://β“β“˜β“§β“”β“‘β“’.ⓝⓔⓣ
https://𝐧𝐒𝐱𝐞𝐫𝐬.𝐧𝐞𝐭
https://π–“π–Žπ–π–Šπ–—π–˜.π–“π–Šπ–™

Interesting, so at which level does the conversion happens, we know DNS only supports ascii and would actually convert unicode to punycode if it encounted some.
The same behavior happens with curl and dig, and snooping it with wireshark shows that the actual request sent for A is nixers.net.

Code:
dig @8.8.8.8 A β“β“˜β“§β“”β“‘β“’.ⓝⓔⓣ

My guess, is that DNS doesn't actually handle such wide characters but that the tool fallback on a library that does the normalization for them.

Let's test if the DNS resolves by packing our own request and sniffing it with wireshark:

Code:
echo -n -e
"\x13\x37\x01\x00\x00\x01\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x18π–“π–Žπ–π–Šπ–—π–˜\x0cπ–“π–Šπ–™\x00\x00\x01\x00\x01" | nc -u -w1 8.8.8.8 53
(Replace Google's DNS with your favorite one)

And nope, it doesn't work, we get a server error:

[Image: tvx7ozx.png]

So it's a local conversion to ascii, using normalization.
From the command line you can test using the following:

Code:
> iconv -f utf-8 -t ascii//TRANSLIT <<<π–“π–Žπ–π–Šπ–—π–˜.π–“π–Šπ–™
nixers.net

And that explains our initial issue. However, I'm still wondering which library does the conversion in all these tools, let me know if you find it, my strace log was too big and I didn't want to parse it.

EDIT: I've actually found where the DNS translation is done in all these tools, they rely on getaddrinfo(3) and other OS libs.
So it start from getaddrinfo to then either calls __idna_to_dns_encoding or __idna_to_ascii_lz depending on the version (my guess), which relies on libidn. So libidn is doing all the dirty work.

Code:
~ > ldd $(which curl) | grep libidn
    libidn2.so.0 => /usr/lib/libidn2.so.0 (0x00007fe303ea0000)

You can actually test it on the command line too, similar to uconv:
Code:
> idn --idna-to-ascii 'https://𝐧𝐒𝐱𝐞𝐫𝐬.𝐧𝐞𝐭'
https://nixers.net

The relevant part of the getaddrinfo docs:
Code:
AI_IDN If  this flag is specified, then the node name given in node is converted
              to IDN format if necessary.  The source encoding is that of  the  current
              locale.

              If the input name contains non-ASCII characters, then the IDN encoding is
              used.  Those parts of the node name (delimited by dots) that contain non-
              ASCII characters are encoded using ASCII Compatible Encoding (ACE) before
              being passed to the name resolution functions.

Other interesting thing you can do with browsers and domain names:
  • Point your domain name to 127.0.0.1, trick the user if they have currently a server running locally
  • Representing the IP in different form such as a single 4B integer: http://2990468176 or multiple Bytes. Even though it isn't in the URL standard
  • The usual homoglyph attack, using characters that could be confused with other ones, for example: https://paypal.com@2990468176

Yep, the web is kind of complicated...

The forums now support unicode proplerly, it's magic!
]]> <![CDATA[The Gemini protocol]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-The-Gemini-protocol Wed, 05 Aug 2020 17:29:06 +0000 bouncepaw]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-The-Gemini-protocol
According to the Gemini FAQ (https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/faq.html),

Quote:Gemini is a new application-level internet protocol for the distribution of arbitrary files, with some special consideration for serving a lightweight hypertext format which facilitates linking between files. You may think of Gemini as "the web, stripped right back to its essence" or as "Gopher, souped up and modernised a little", depending upon your perspective. Gemini may be of interest to people who are:
  • Opposed to the web's ubiquitous user tracking
  • Tired of obnoxious adverts, autoplaying videos and other misfeatures
  • Interested in low-power computing and/or low-speed networks
    Gemini is intended to be simple, but not necessarily as simple as possible. Instead, the design strives to maximise its "power to weight ratio", while keeping its weight within acceptable limits. Gemini is also intended to be very privacy conscious, to be difficult to extend in the future (so that it will stay simple and privacy conscious), and to be compatible with a "do it yourself" computing ethos. For this last reason, Gemini is technically very familiar and conservative: it's a protocol in the traditional client-server request-response paradigm, and is built on mature, standardised technology like URIs, MIME media types, and TLS.

Read the FAQ or the spec (https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/sp...ation.html) for more info. The protocol is quite elegant and is small enough to be understood fully by one person.

One of the features I absolutely love is Gemini's native markup language, gemtext or text/gemini. Here are all elements of the language:
Code:
# heading 1
## heading 2
### heading 3
=> link
* list item
> quote
paragraph

```
preformatted
```

That's all! No images. Links are on their own lines. Only 3 levels of headings. No emphasis.

If you are interested, you may start with a web-proxy for gemini. If you want to install a proper client, choose one of the listed ones in the faq. I use amfora.

Some sites I'd recommend:
There is a lot more sites there and you can make your own! ]]>
According to the Gemini FAQ (https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/faq.html),

Quote:Gemini is a new application-level internet protocol for the distribution of arbitrary files, with some special consideration for serving a lightweight hypertext format which facilitates linking between files. You may think of Gemini as "the web, stripped right back to its essence" or as "Gopher, souped up and modernised a little", depending upon your perspective. Gemini may be of interest to people who are:
  • Opposed to the web's ubiquitous user tracking
  • Tired of obnoxious adverts, autoplaying videos and other misfeatures
  • Interested in low-power computing and/or low-speed networks
    Gemini is intended to be simple, but not necessarily as simple as possible. Instead, the design strives to maximise its "power to weight ratio", while keeping its weight within acceptable limits. Gemini is also intended to be very privacy conscious, to be difficult to extend in the future (so that it will stay simple and privacy conscious), and to be compatible with a "do it yourself" computing ethos. For this last reason, Gemini is technically very familiar and conservative: it's a protocol in the traditional client-server request-response paradigm, and is built on mature, standardised technology like URIs, MIME media types, and TLS.

Read the FAQ or the spec (https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/sp...ation.html) for more info. The protocol is quite elegant and is small enough to be understood fully by one person.

One of the features I absolutely love is Gemini's native markup language, gemtext or text/gemini. Here are all elements of the language:
Code:
# heading 1
## heading 2
### heading 3
=> link
* list item
> quote
paragraph

```
preformatted
```

That's all! No images. Links are on their own lines. Only 3 levels of headings. No emphasis.

If you are interested, you may start with a web-proxy for gemini. If you want to install a proper client, choose one of the listed ones in the faq. I use amfora.

Some sites I'd recommend:
There is a lot more sites there and you can make your own! ]]> <![CDATA[RSS feeds]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-RSS-feeds Sun, 21 Jun 2020 17:17:22 +0000 octahedral]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-RSS-feeds <![CDATA[micro-nano-pico forum cms on php]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-micro-nano-pico-forum-cms-on-php Tue, 02 Jul 2019 11:18:14 +0000 turboblack]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-micro-nano-pico-forum-cms-on-php http://wrk.pp.ua/engine/

Single-file CMS for creating a micro-nano-pico forum in which only admin can act as top-starter. to work you need php 4 and higher, does not require relational databases, everything is in one small file. All the rest have the right to comment without the need for registration, without the possibility of inserting HTML codes, and then something graphic. The only exceptions are Emoji, you can copy them from any existing source, or by entering from the phone (many have this software on their phones, so I see no reason to insert them into the program).
The administrator can edit topics with the ability to insert images, various formats, etc. pieces https://htmled.it/ - there are such visual editors with the help of which you can create and then format it as it should, and insert the ready code into the topic, after saving you can admire the result.
But there is also no connection button with the admin, what"s the point if the engine is created for maximum anonymity, however ... whoever wants to can leave their real data at their own risk, as they say.

For installation on the hosting, you will need PHP version 4 and higher, you can add your favicon to the folder with the CMS and it will appear at the top of the browser;)
No rights to install will be required, all data will be recorded in the index
sections are created if you forget to enter the name of the topic, and just add a couple of words to the "content".
Administrator comments are highlighted in purple and ordinary users in black.
the administrator does not have a fixed nickname, you can always use a different nickname.
in theory, there is a possibility that comments would be sent to the mail, which you enter in the admin panel (in which you only write the name of the site, which is above, the email, and the administrator password, but you don’t need more).

there is a version in Russian, it is no different from English.

how do you think? Do people need such a script? Is he worthy of a github release? it's only 10 kilobytes of code in one file ...]]> http://wrk.pp.ua/engine/

Single-file CMS for creating a micro-nano-pico forum in which only admin can act as top-starter. to work you need php 4 and higher, does not require relational databases, everything is in one small file. All the rest have the right to comment without the need for registration, without the possibility of inserting HTML codes, and then something graphic. The only exceptions are Emoji, you can copy them from any existing source, or by entering from the phone (many have this software on their phones, so I see no reason to insert them into the program).
The administrator can edit topics with the ability to insert images, various formats, etc. pieces https://htmled.it/ - there are such visual editors with the help of which you can create and then format it as it should, and insert the ready code into the topic, after saving you can admire the result.
But there is also no connection button with the admin, what"s the point if the engine is created for maximum anonymity, however ... whoever wants to can leave their real data at their own risk, as they say.

For installation on the hosting, you will need PHP version 4 and higher, you can add your favicon to the folder with the CMS and it will appear at the top of the browser;)
No rights to install will be required, all data will be recorded in the index
sections are created if you forget to enter the name of the topic, and just add a couple of words to the "content".
Administrator comments are highlighted in purple and ordinary users in black.
the administrator does not have a fixed nickname, you can always use a different nickname.
in theory, there is a possibility that comments would be sent to the mail, which you enter in the admin panel (in which you only write the name of the site, which is above, the email, and the administrator password, but you don’t need more).

there is a version in Russian, it is no different from English.

how do you think? Do people need such a script? Is he worthy of a github release? it's only 10 kilobytes of code in one file ...]]> <![CDATA[questions about making a simple blog from scratch with go lang.]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-questions-about-making-a-simple-blog-from-scratch-with-go-lang Thu, 30 Nov 2017 01:44:16 +0000 renken]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-questions-about-making-a-simple-blog-from-scratch-with-go-lang What I know so far:
- Basic Data Structures.
- Basic File Operations.
- Basic Understanding of net/http, html and css. (didn't read about javascript).
- Getting into databases, and dealing with one.
What I don't know how to do:
- How to even start?
- What if I wrote a new blog and had to add it to the navigation bar, how can i automate such a thing to be applied to all pages?
Any tips will be more than welcomed to read. Thank you. Not just about this thread but web dev in general.]]> What I know so far:
- Basic Data Structures.
- Basic File Operations.
- Basic Understanding of net/http, html and css. (didn't read about javascript).
- Getting into databases, and dealing with one.
What I don't know how to do:
- How to even start?
- What if I wrote a new blog and had to add it to the navigation bar, how can i automate such a thing to be applied to all pages?
Any tips will be more than welcomed to read. Thank you. Not just about this thread but web dev in general.]]> <![CDATA[Emulating/Looking-like a WM Webpage]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-Emulating-Looking-like-a-WM-Webpage Mon, 17 Jul 2017 18:26:30 +0000 venam]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-Emulating-Looking-like-a-WM-Webpage There was a trend we were doing some years ago about making our personal webpage similar to our window manager. I remember quite a lot of members had set that up.

Today I've seen this page popped up and I wondered about what happened to all those websites we made.

I still have the old version of my blog here (trying to look like 2bwm):
https://venam.nixers.net/old

Let's start this trend again, it'll be fun.

Bump this thread with website you found that looked like a window manager or with new ideas.

Cheers!]]> There was a trend we were doing some years ago about making our personal webpage similar to our window manager. I remember quite a lot of members had set that up.

Today I've seen this page popped up and I wondered about what happened to all those websites we made.

I still have the old version of my blog here (trying to look like 2bwm):
https://venam.nixers.net/old

Let's start this trend again, it'll be fun.

Bump this thread with website you found that looked like a window manager or with new ideas.

Cheers!]]> <![CDATA[blogs]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-blogs Mon, 22 Aug 2016 21:21:55 +0000 robotchaos]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-blogs <![CDATA[Browsers, your windows to the WWW]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-Browsers-your-windows-to-the-WWW Mon, 23 May 2016 04:45:58 +0000 venam]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-Browsers-your-windows-to-the-WWW

Link of the recording [ https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nixers...-08-07.mp3 ]


Browsers, your windows to the world wide web. What do you use, customize, problems you've stumbled upon, the ties with your Unix system.

--(Transcript)--


(OLD:This week podcast was peculiar. It started and ended with ukulele and singing
about pizzas, a special composition by om3n and dami.)


#Intro#

Browsers, your windows to the WWW
What do you use, customize, the problems you've stumbled upon, how
we're using those browsers in the Unix world, the most used browsers,
why we use them, and all the problems we've encountered

I'm venam and you're listening to. The nixers podcast


##Favorite browsers and engines##


Different browsers run on different engines.
Consequently, more or less, by asking what's your favorite browser,
you are also asking what's your favorite engine.

Let's visit some of the responses we've got from the nixers members,
What are the browsers or engine that integrate the best with their workflow.
The ones they use the most and why.

---

The first responses were some funny trolls.

Quote:
> I actually turn on my virtual machine so I can use Internet explorer 1.
> I'm an IE lover! It's the best thing ever! I like all the security holes.
> The lack of HTML5 is just amazing.
< I imagine...
> It's a whole 1KB of ram!
< That sounds fantastic!
> Yeah! It's the best browser on the planet!


Quote:
> Wget
< that's not a webbrowser!


> Come on guys we all know mothra is the best browser ever
< Thanks adam for this plan9 interjection


After that we had some serious answers.

Most said that they used the stable version of Firefox. Though We didn't hear
about the different releases. It would have been cool to get some tips and
inputs about the developer version, nightly, and why you would prefer those,
but I guess it'll get clearer as the podcast goes on why people use the
stable version.

Let's name some of the reasons why Firefox is used the most.

Quote:
> Usually firefox, not my favorite but the one that makes sense.
> I stick with firefox because of the addons and customization.
> It's a good webdev browser.
> I've used Firefox for a major portion of my life
> I use FF sometimes


Other browsers that were mentioned.

Some "stick with Chromium", which we'll talk about later on.
It has a huge legions of fans and haters, it's the controversial browser in
the Unix world.


> For my job i am required to use chrome (we target webkit with our sites,
so we all must test on the same platform)
> I use Chrome on pretty well everything


"dwb", "it doesn't eat so much ram and just works".
"qbrowser", based on qtwebkit, it has a "pretty good, minimalist interface" however the downside is that it has no addons.
"xombrero", based on webkit, it's fast and slick.
"uzbl", also based on webkit
"qutebrowser", it's based on pyqt5, "it's very fast and lean.
"I like the interface and the controls. but until you can do css overrides,
(inline, plugin, etc) it will not be my personal choice."
"Opera", "I've used Opera since the days you could open the binary in a
hexeditor to disable the ad-support, from memory that was 1996 or so. I've been
sore to see it become a chromium skin and am still hanging on to it
out of a kind of inertia."


I've tried more minimalistic browsers which has a certain appeal but I also
want them to 'just work and display the page', so I've never actually made the
switch.


##Integration with workflow and customization##

As far as workflow is concerned, it's an unanimity, "obviously everyone
uses vimperator". It's a part of a nixers daily routine. The vim love
is scattered even in the browsers lands.
Vim-like bindings rule them all.

One of the member uses a custom binding in vim to open webvideos url in
mpv instead of having to open the browser to do so.

Most Nixers keep their browser open all the time.

Some keep it on a workspace alone, others side by side with a terminal
(split the workspace in two) or just use sloppy focus and overlay.

We argued a bit about why we kept the browser open if we didn't use it.
For example, the ones that don't, use a lightweight browser to open links
posted on chats which leads to the browser instantly poping up in front
of them. For instance, links -g (graphic mode), which can display images.

It was emphasized that it was equally fast, if the main browser is open the entire time.


##RAM nagging##


After the last discussion the typical minimalist talk on ram usage ensue.
Because Keeping browsers open all the time, especially nowadays, destroy
your memory usage.

If you have a limited amount of RAM and are running low on resources, you might
want to adapt the "open links fast with lightweight browsers" approach, but if
you have "16GB of ram" then there's "no problems" because "Ram usage
isn't a problem

> If you got 'em use 'em".

Interestingly enough one user with plenty of ram to spare (hear by that 16GB)
even with his huge amount ran into problems related to it.

As you might already know, you can customize Firefox (in the about:config) to
use more ram and access the disk less frequently or not at all in specific
cases.

It's a sort of compromise, use less disk but use more RAM.

We discussed a bit and it happens that increasing the javascript memory limit
from 28MB to 4GB makes Firefox crash and unable to start (Same user that
bragged about his 16GB of spared ram). Then we asked "How big is your
swap", and the answer was... "I don't have swap", which explained a lot.

Lesson learned, don't be too proud of your big ram!

If you want more info on blasting Firefox with your spared memory see the
show notes or the transcript, there's a link with a lot of relevant configs.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Firefox_Ramdisk.


All in all the story repeats itself with all the modern browsers, kids open
tons of tabs and the browser eats up all the ram and swap, the whole system
becomes unresponsive.

This goes for Chrome/Chromium, Firefox, Opera, and alll the webkit based
browsers.

Let's hope we see this change in the coming years.


##Privacy##


In the Unix world privacy is a big topic and because our browsers are the windows
to the internet most of the time, even if the internet isn't limited to www,
we want it to be squeaky clean.

Let's go into some ways our users protect themselves from nastiness.

Ads....

Quote:
> If I don't have an adblock I'll cry...


Quote:
> I setup a second box as a private DNS server (adsuck) to block ads
and keep my privacy.

Those are important claim. The world wide web is getting sick of this culture
of advertisements. It seems we have become the product of this machinery.

We have no clue how to sustain an economy anymore on the internet and this
all needs reshaping.


Firefox...


Firefox has the big win on the privacy issues because it comes with addons
and Mozilla is known to be part of the internet defence league since its
creation in 2012.
It has the trust of users, even though other browsers also have addons, which
we'll discuss in a bit.

Let's list somes useful addons for firefox:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/umatrix/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox...ck-origin/
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox...estpolicy/

Quote:
> Https everywhere is kinda slow (as in slow down the browsing)
< Not for me
> Not for me either


Quote:
> Noscript! How can you live with noscript enabled?
< I don't use noscript for all of it's features
< umatrix does most of noscript functions.
< I use noscript to block other things such as XSS, cookies, xhr, etc..


Quote:
> To block third parties I use request policy, it's great.
> It uses a whitelist instead of a blacklist
< umatrix is a kinda join between request policy and noscript with extra options to specify what type of component you want to block
> Cool
< For most sites I only enable css and images, to see the bare page, and load the scripts manually.
> Same


Some guy went a step further, he takes the approache of segregation and
isolation, splitting the privacy into 3 groups:

* trusted:
web sites i trust not to be evil or my own web sites. Web sites i choose
to use for webrtc, to run freely plugins or that can access to mic.

* secure:
web sites i normally think they are safe, but i don’t really know and
don’t fully trust.

* paranoid:
web sites i know to be evil, or just i think probably can be malicious,
or just i want to be reasonabily sure it’s hard for them to trace me
and my identity.

https://firejail.wordpress.com/
https://www.nexlab.net/2016/08/06/deskto...nd-theory/

He builds a sanboxed webbrowser using firejail:

The paranoid version runs in a jail, with a different user with different
permissions.
It will not access to sound, mic or cam at all. It will access network
only through tor, and it will run on a separate networking namespace.
Also, it will NOT share clipboard with the X11 session, as it will run
on a completely separate session using xpra.
It also passes through a proxy or tor.
Saves all the download to a temporary file system to make it more volatile.


Chromium...it gets a lot of hate, but why?

Quote:
> I use dwb...and shitty Chromium


Quote:
> I use Chromium
< Don't you disable Chromium botnet features?
> I like the botnets, it adds flavors
< ...
> ..Don't care about being in a botnet every time I fire up Chromium


Quote:
> Pretty fast and pretty good but it has by the default botnet feature enabled which turns me down.


Quote:
> I used Chromium once.
> I searched and found how to disable the tracking and instant searches (Google trying to help you).
> Go to disable them.
> Restart the browser.. Everything is much slower.
> Related??

Let's not go into the darkhole even more, we're a bit biased.
Chrome and Chromium have their mischievous reputation because of their
default settings but you could make that better.

One user use chromium but compiles it himself using the inox patched to add
security features and a number of plugins to go along with it.

- cvim
- stylish
- clear cache
- edit this cookie
- ublock origin
- gtranslate
- reddit enhancement suite


##Problems##


Flash has been tagged deprecated for some time now (Adobe Flash Player
11.2 is the last version to target Linux).
https://www.adobe.com/ca/products/flashp...tion3.html

None of us seemed bothered by it.

Quote:
> Flashless is good these days!
> Everything uses HTML5 making the web a better place


Netflix support was also mentioned.

Quote:
> My only major complaint is the Netflix problem


Hardware acceleration is a pain on Unix.
You usually have to link the drivers directly (location).
It leads to some slow down with webgl, to problems opening the camera, audio, etc..


HTML5 h264 codec, isn't directly supported by Firefox.
It is a non-free plugin that only comes if Firefox was compiled with
the flag enabling it (you can check your about:buildconfig).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC
There's an open version:
http://www.openh264.org/
Let's not that this codec is enable by default for firefox mobile and on Windows.

If you want to have it (with the drm that comes with it) you need to recompile
Firefox. But you can certainly make more use of your precious time!


#Conclusion#


Remember when the Browser War was said to be over ans everyone was happy
that they can use the standard now?

The evolution of web standards is going way too fast and many things require
you to have a fully compliant and up to date browser.
Those browsers are a huge clog.

#Music Interlude#
Musics from http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/jazz]]>

Link of the recording [ https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nixers...-08-07.mp3 ]


Browsers, your windows to the world wide web. What do you use, customize, problems you've stumbled upon, the ties with your Unix system.

--(Transcript)--


(OLD:This week podcast was peculiar. It started and ended with ukulele and singing
about pizzas, a special composition by om3n and dami.)


#Intro#

Browsers, your windows to the WWW
What do you use, customize, the problems you've stumbled upon, how
we're using those browsers in the Unix world, the most used browsers,
why we use them, and all the problems we've encountered

I'm venam and you're listening to. The nixers podcast


##Favorite browsers and engines##


Different browsers run on different engines.
Consequently, more or less, by asking what's your favorite browser,
you are also asking what's your favorite engine.

Let's visit some of the responses we've got from the nixers members,
What are the browsers or engine that integrate the best with their workflow.
The ones they use the most and why.

---

The first responses were some funny trolls.

Quote:
> I actually turn on my virtual machine so I can use Internet explorer 1.
> I'm an IE lover! It's the best thing ever! I like all the security holes.
> The lack of HTML5 is just amazing.
< I imagine...
> It's a whole 1KB of ram!
< That sounds fantastic!
> Yeah! It's the best browser on the planet!


Quote:
> Wget
< that's not a webbrowser!


> Come on guys we all know mothra is the best browser ever
< Thanks adam for this plan9 interjection


After that we had some serious answers.

Most said that they used the stable version of Firefox. Though We didn't hear
about the different releases. It would have been cool to get some tips and
inputs about the developer version, nightly, and why you would prefer those,
but I guess it'll get clearer as the podcast goes on why people use the
stable version.

Let's name some of the reasons why Firefox is used the most.

Quote:
> Usually firefox, not my favorite but the one that makes sense.
> I stick with firefox because of the addons and customization.
> It's a good webdev browser.
> I've used Firefox for a major portion of my life
> I use FF sometimes


Other browsers that were mentioned.

Some "stick with Chromium", which we'll talk about later on.
It has a huge legions of fans and haters, it's the controversial browser in
the Unix world.


> For my job i am required to use chrome (we target webkit with our sites,
so we all must test on the same platform)
> I use Chrome on pretty well everything


"dwb", "it doesn't eat so much ram and just works".
"qbrowser", based on qtwebkit, it has a "pretty good, minimalist interface" however the downside is that it has no addons.
"xombrero", based on webkit, it's fast and slick.
"uzbl", also based on webkit
"qutebrowser", it's based on pyqt5, "it's very fast and lean.
"I like the interface and the controls. but until you can do css overrides,
(inline, plugin, etc) it will not be my personal choice."
"Opera", "I've used Opera since the days you could open the binary in a
hexeditor to disable the ad-support, from memory that was 1996 or so. I've been
sore to see it become a chromium skin and am still hanging on to it
out of a kind of inertia."


I've tried more minimalistic browsers which has a certain appeal but I also
want them to 'just work and display the page', so I've never actually made the
switch.


##Integration with workflow and customization##

As far as workflow is concerned, it's an unanimity, "obviously everyone
uses vimperator". It's a part of a nixers daily routine. The vim love
is scattered even in the browsers lands.
Vim-like bindings rule them all.

One of the member uses a custom binding in vim to open webvideos url in
mpv instead of having to open the browser to do so.

Most Nixers keep their browser open all the time.

Some keep it on a workspace alone, others side by side with a terminal
(split the workspace in two) or just use sloppy focus and overlay.

We argued a bit about why we kept the browser open if we didn't use it.
For example, the ones that don't, use a lightweight browser to open links
posted on chats which leads to the browser instantly poping up in front
of them. For instance, links -g (graphic mode), which can display images.

It was emphasized that it was equally fast, if the main browser is open the entire time.


##RAM nagging##


After the last discussion the typical minimalist talk on ram usage ensue.
Because Keeping browsers open all the time, especially nowadays, destroy
your memory usage.

If you have a limited amount of RAM and are running low on resources, you might
want to adapt the "open links fast with lightweight browsers" approach, but if
you have "16GB of ram" then there's "no problems" because "Ram usage
isn't a problem

> If you got 'em use 'em".

Interestingly enough one user with plenty of ram to spare (hear by that 16GB)
even with his huge amount ran into problems related to it.

As you might already know, you can customize Firefox (in the about:config) to
use more ram and access the disk less frequently or not at all in specific
cases.

It's a sort of compromise, use less disk but use more RAM.

We discussed a bit and it happens that increasing the javascript memory limit
from 28MB to 4GB makes Firefox crash and unable to start (Same user that
bragged about his 16GB of spared ram). Then we asked "How big is your
swap", and the answer was... "I don't have swap", which explained a lot.

Lesson learned, don't be too proud of your big ram!

If you want more info on blasting Firefox with your spared memory see the
show notes or the transcript, there's a link with a lot of relevant configs.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Firefox_Ramdisk.


All in all the story repeats itself with all the modern browsers, kids open
tons of tabs and the browser eats up all the ram and swap, the whole system
becomes unresponsive.

This goes for Chrome/Chromium, Firefox, Opera, and alll the webkit based
browsers.

Let's hope we see this change in the coming years.


##Privacy##


In the Unix world privacy is a big topic and because our browsers are the windows
to the internet most of the time, even if the internet isn't limited to www,
we want it to be squeaky clean.

Let's go into some ways our users protect themselves from nastiness.

Ads....

Quote:
> If I don't have an adblock I'll cry...


Quote:
> I setup a second box as a private DNS server (adsuck) to block ads
and keep my privacy.

Those are important claim. The world wide web is getting sick of this culture
of advertisements. It seems we have become the product of this machinery.

We have no clue how to sustain an economy anymore on the internet and this
all needs reshaping.


Firefox...


Firefox has the big win on the privacy issues because it comes with addons
and Mozilla is known to be part of the internet defence league since its
creation in 2012.
It has the trust of users, even though other browsers also have addons, which
we'll discuss in a bit.

Let's list somes useful addons for firefox:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/umatrix/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox...ck-origin/
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox...estpolicy/

Quote:
> Https everywhere is kinda slow (as in slow down the browsing)
< Not for me
> Not for me either


Quote:
> Noscript! How can you live with noscript enabled?
< I don't use noscript for all of it's features
< umatrix does most of noscript functions.
< I use noscript to block other things such as XSS, cookies, xhr, etc..


Quote:
> To block third parties I use request policy, it's great.
> It uses a whitelist instead of a blacklist
< umatrix is a kinda join between request policy and noscript with extra options to specify what type of component you want to block
> Cool
< For most sites I only enable css and images, to see the bare page, and load the scripts manually.
> Same


Some guy went a step further, he takes the approache of segregation and
isolation, splitting the privacy into 3 groups:

* trusted:
web sites i trust not to be evil or my own web sites. Web sites i choose
to use for webrtc, to run freely plugins or that can access to mic.

* secure:
web sites i normally think they are safe, but i don’t really know and
don’t fully trust.

* paranoid:
web sites i know to be evil, or just i think probably can be malicious,
or just i want to be reasonabily sure it’s hard for them to trace me
and my identity.

https://firejail.wordpress.com/
https://www.nexlab.net/2016/08/06/deskto...nd-theory/

He builds a sanboxed webbrowser using firejail:

The paranoid version runs in a jail, with a different user with different
permissions.
It will not access to sound, mic or cam at all. It will access network
only through tor, and it will run on a separate networking namespace.
Also, it will NOT share clipboard with the X11 session, as it will run
on a completely separate session using xpra.
It also passes through a proxy or tor.
Saves all the download to a temporary file system to make it more volatile.


Chromium...it gets a lot of hate, but why?

Quote:
> I use dwb...and shitty Chromium


Quote:
> I use Chromium
< Don't you disable Chromium botnet features?
> I like the botnets, it adds flavors
< ...
> ..Don't care about being in a botnet every time I fire up Chromium


Quote:
> Pretty fast and pretty good but it has by the default botnet feature enabled which turns me down.


Quote:
> I used Chromium once.
> I searched and found how to disable the tracking and instant searches (Google trying to help you).
> Go to disable them.
> Restart the browser.. Everything is much slower.
> Related??

Let's not go into the darkhole even more, we're a bit biased.
Chrome and Chromium have their mischievous reputation because of their
default settings but you could make that better.

One user use chromium but compiles it himself using the inox patched to add
security features and a number of plugins to go along with it.

- cvim
- stylish
- clear cache
- edit this cookie
- ublock origin
- gtranslate
- reddit enhancement suite


##Problems##


Flash has been tagged deprecated for some time now (Adobe Flash Player
11.2 is the last version to target Linux).
https://www.adobe.com/ca/products/flashp...tion3.html

None of us seemed bothered by it.

Quote:
> Flashless is good these days!
> Everything uses HTML5 making the web a better place


Netflix support was also mentioned.

Quote:
> My only major complaint is the Netflix problem


Hardware acceleration is a pain on Unix.
You usually have to link the drivers directly (location).
It leads to some slow down with webgl, to problems opening the camera, audio, etc..


HTML5 h264 codec, isn't directly supported by Firefox.
It is a non-free plugin that only comes if Firefox was compiled with
the flag enabling it (you can check your about:buildconfig).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC
There's an open version:
http://www.openh264.org/
Let's not that this codec is enable by default for firefox mobile and on Windows.

If you want to have it (with the drm that comes with it) you need to recompile
Firefox. But you can certainly make more use of your precious time!


#Conclusion#


Remember when the Browser War was said to be over ans everyone was happy
that they can use the standard now?

The evolution of web standards is going way too fast and many things require
you to have a fully compliant and up to date browser.
Those browsers are a huge clog.

#Music Interlude#
Musics from http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/jazz]]> <![CDATA[The hosting-thread]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-The-hosting-thread Sat, 05 Sep 2015 19:25:49 +0000 dtnt]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-The-hosting-thread
The number of services and / or servers I own continously increases and there are some, if few, actual people using them. I should finally get some sort of monitoring up and running. Ideally, the monitoring host would reside nowhere near the rest of my servers, so .. recommend me a hoster.

I was thinking about going with scaleway, but would be open to suggestions. KVM is a must since I don't like containerization, ideally the use of custom images would be supported. Contract on a monthly, not yearly base.]]>
The number of services and / or servers I own continously increases and there are some, if few, actual people using them. I should finally get some sort of monitoring up and running. Ideally, the monitoring host would reside nowhere near the rest of my servers, so .. recommend me a hoster.

I was thinking about going with scaleway, but would be open to suggestions. KVM is a must since I don't like containerization, ideally the use of custom images would be supported. Contract on a monthly, not yearly base.]]> <![CDATA[Post your website]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-Post-your-website Sat, 23 Aug 2014 16:06:02 +0000 pizzaroll1]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-Post-your-website
I have one, at http://kaashif.co.uk. Kaashif is my real name by the way, I'm not just linking to some random guy's website and claiming it as my own.

So, who else has a website?]]>
I have one, at http://kaashif.co.uk. Kaashif is my real name by the way, I'm not just linking to some random guy's website and claiming it as my own.

So, who else has a website?]]> <![CDATA[NIXERS Forums]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-NIXERS-Forums Wed, 19 Mar 2014 22:04:41 +0000 yrmt]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-NIXERS-Forums
I've been fixing the forum's theme and templates lately, and I'll welcome any advice or request to make it better and more enjoyable for everyone in this thread!

I've fixed:

- the header issues
- added thread titles in threads
- fixed quote button
- added thread page numbers on the top
- de bolding
- the quick reply spinning wheel is now hidden]]>
I've been fixing the forum's theme and templates lately, and I'll welcome any advice or request to make it better and more enjoyable for everyone in this thread!

I've fixed:

- the header issues
- added thread titles in threads
- fixed quote button
- added thread page numbers on the top
- de bolding
- the quick reply spinning wheel is now hidden]]> <![CDATA[Need help with XML/XSL]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-Need-help-with-XML-XSL Fri, 27 Dec 2013 22:45:20 +0000 vompatti]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-Need-help-with-XML-XSL
I'm been working with this "System Information Manager" program past week and decided to use XML as data format for it, but I can't get XSL to work along... So, I need help with it.

Here is the XML: https://paste.xinu.at/cP8g/

I tried to google the XSL stuff but I just can't get it to work.

Any help is appreciated :)]]>
I'm been working with this "System Information Manager" program past week and decided to use XML as data format for it, but I can't get XSL to work along... So, I need help with it.

Here is the XML: https://paste.xinu.at/cP8g/

I tried to google the XSL stuff but I just can't get it to work.

Any help is appreciated :)]]> <![CDATA[Simple-as-pi PHP blog without a database]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-Simple-as-pi-PHP-blog-without-a-database Sat, 30 Nov 2013 04:04:24 +0000 hades]]> https://nixers.net/Thread-Simple-as-pi-PHP-blog-without-a-database
But it's stupid. If your blog suddenly gets popular, constantly opening and closing and reading from text files will stress out your server a lot more than reading from a single database would. That, and for the most part, if you're using a free host, they keep your databases on something with decent I/O like an SSD, while keeping your server root on a larger, but slower drive (Mainly because Databases need to be fast, and don't take up as much space as the average user's document_root folder, which may be stuffed with bootleg movies or some shit)

Bottom line, don't use this unless you really wanna just play with it and see how it ticks - it is quite interesting.

Here it is on github: https://github.com/hadenodom/php-file-blog

Basically, posts are stored in the posts/ folder, as numbered files with no extension. Just text files. Each numbered file is a post; the higher the number, the more recent the post. The files can have any html in them, nothing is off limits. The first line of each file should be the title, though. I'll explain that in just a second.

Index.php counts the number of files in posts/, and it uses that variable to determine the three most recently uploaded files (based on their names). It displays links to the posts, and reads the three most recent files, and displays the first line out of each file as the text for the link to that post (that's why the first line of the file should be the title). The link goes to "blog.php?post=1" (if you're going to post 1) ; This basically refers you to blog.php with the variable post set at 1.

Blog.php checks for the post variable when it loads. If it's referred to without a post var set, it loads and shows all of the posts (You might wanna make it show only ten or something if you post a lot...) If it's referred with one (such as post=1 in the previous example), it'll load and show that post.

Have fun with this, you guys. And hopefully, you can learn a little bit of PHP file operations by reading through it.]]>
But it's stupid. If your blog suddenly gets popular, constantly opening and closing and reading from text files will stress out your server a lot more than reading from a single database would. That, and for the most part, if you're using a free host, they keep your databases on something with decent I/O like an SSD, while keeping your server root on a larger, but slower drive (Mainly because Databases need to be fast, and don't take up as much space as the average user's document_root folder, which may be stuffed with bootleg movies or some shit)

Bottom line, don't use this unless you really wanna just play with it and see how it ticks - it is quite interesting.

Here it is on github: https://github.com/hadenodom/php-file-blog

Basically, posts are stored in the posts/ folder, as numbered files with no extension. Just text files. Each numbered file is a post; the higher the number, the more recent the post. The files can have any html in them, nothing is off limits. The first line of each file should be the title, though. I'll explain that in just a second.

Index.php counts the number of files in posts/, and it uses that variable to determine the three most recently uploaded files (based on their names). It displays links to the posts, and reads the three most recent files, and displays the first line out of each file as the text for the link to that post (that's why the first line of the file should be the title). The link goes to "blog.php?post=1" (if you're going to post 1) ; This basically refers you to blog.php with the variable post set at 1.

Blog.php checks for the post variable when it loads. If it's referred to without a post var set, it loads and shows all of the posts (You might wanna make it show only ten or something if you post a lot...) If it's referred with one (such as post=1 in the previous example), it'll load and show that post.

Have fun with this, you guys. And hopefully, you can learn a little bit of PHP file operations by reading through it.]]>