Explanation: Germans ~~used to~~ (apparently only in my bubble) call cellphones "Handy" and many people still do that. My friends from america found that quite hilarious.

Hey, guys.

Pre-workday-Netto chiming in to inform you that a XSS vulnerability has been found in Lemmy's frontend and that several instances have been compromised.

You can track the issue here.

I implemented the supposed patch and uploaded an ARM64 build that has the patch applied to Docker Hub, if any other instance might need it (use with caution).

Please note that you'll have to log back in, as all active sessions have been terminated.

I'll continue to monitor the situation when I'm at work.

✌️

Hello, everyone!

My wife @Alirrasona told me earlier that she isn't fond of Lemmy's default web interface.

As many of you know, there are numerous alternative frontends for Lemmy. There are apps for Android and iOS, but also web frontends that you can access through your browser.

Two of them are pretty solid in my opinion. They're called Mlmym and Wefwef. Yes, the names are pretty weird, but they fundamentally change the way you can browse through Lemmy content.

Wefwef

Wefwef resembles an iOS application that works similar to how Apollo for Reddit used to work. You just visit the web page on your device, log in (if you want) and there you go. You can even "install" it as a progressive web application (PWA) and it'll appear in your launcher, start menu or wherever, acting as a native application.

Our Instance | Official Instance | GitHub Repository

Screenshot

Mlmym

Mlmym is a pretty good clone of the classic Reddit layout, also known as Old Reddit. So, for the folks out there who prefer that, Mlmym has got you covered.

Our Instance | Official Instance | GitHub Repository

Screenshot

Why does FOSSware host these instances?

Why not? Choice is good. And in the fediverse, spreading load is necessary.

If you like the software, please consider donating to the developers. Wefwef has a sponsor link on the GitHub Page!

✌️

Hello, community.

After my faux pas earlier today I now have some good news for you: I just upgraded the server to Lemmy 0.18.1, which brings mostly stability, performance and security improvements.

You can see a list with the changes here.

I recently followed the changes to Lemmy very closely and pretty much immediately pulled the latest changes when I saw something that I deemed necessary, which means, we were already pretty close to 0.18.1 release anyway.

As usual, let me know if something doesn't work, etc.

Much love from Germany!

✌️

Hello, everyone!

Due to me fiddling around with Cloudflare and accidently applying wrong settings during one of my sleepless nights (I was tired again 😅), we weren't reachable for most people for a couple hours.

Since it was a DNS settings problem, it took some time to propagate and therefore it took some time for me to notice. I took my changes back for now and now it'll take some time for that to propagate, as well.

I'm really sorry, ~~it'll not happen again~~ it might happen again, but I'll do my best to prevent things like that in the future. I just want a stable experience for everyone!

Hey, community.

This one might probably trigger some of you. But just a question that comes out of the blue: What are your thoughts on it?

I first learned programming back in the day with Visual Basic 2008. Nowadays, I can program with C#, Java, PHP and some other languages rather well (I'm no professional, though), but I often come back to Visual Basic, because I'm just so used to it. Even though it's not that often, because I'm a Linux user.

But let's say I need a small program for Windows real quick? VB.NET is gonna be my choice. Right now, I'm implementing a board game server + client for the game of go (also called baduk or wei'qi) and I'm making really good progress.

I personally think that people should just use what they want to use. I don't get the hate for PHP and some other languages and I think this gate-keeping and god complex some developers have is really annoying. Makes me want to use VB.NET even harder.

I also don't like to jump on board with every new and upcoming programming language or library, just to be cool.

I'd also like to emphasize that I'm not creating software for a living right now. I do have a small company for a little bit of freelance work, but that's just money on the side that comes in by creating really small projects.

Edit: Nitter's back!

Hey, community.

As some of you probably know, FOSSware has instances for the popular, privacy-respecting front-ends for Reddit, Twitter and YouTube, called Teddit, Nitter and Piped.

Teddit and Piped don't use any kind of official API to get the content off the respective websites, so they continue to work, even after Reddit's API restrictions that went in place today. It's a different story with Twitter. Interested folks may track the GitHub issue here.

This shows once again that the decentralized approach is the better one. Let's take the matter into our own hands and use Lemmy, KBin, Mastodon, Pleroma, Pixelfed, Peertube, Calckey, etc.

The future is now, old man.

✌️

Just some cutsies enjoying the weather.

Hello, guys!

As mentioned in the server maintenance post, 2FA is now available with Lemmy 0.18.0. However, the implementation seems to be borked.

Issues right now

• Instead of a QR code as usual, users will be presented with a button that opens a link
• There's no check whether or not the generated tokens work, 2FA is just being enabled without prior safety-check
• This might be too complicated for non-tech-savvy users, and they're effectively locking themselves out of their accounts
• After copying the generated secret to Bitwarden, the generated TOTP tokens don't seem to work anyway (didn't try with Aegis, etc.)

You can track the GitHub issue here.

Temporary Solution

Even though I'm not happy about it, I'll force-disable 2FA for now. If you enable it, it's gonna jump back to disabled after a short amount of time.

Gonna update you guys when this is fixed. Thank you!

Edit: Updated lemmy to 0.18.1.rc.10 and lemmy-ui to 0.18.1.rc.11. ARM64 images on Docker Hub.

Hello, guys.

As you might've noticed by the downtime, I decided to upgrade the server today, because I pretty much failed yesterday, due to migraine.

👍 Good news: The server is now running the latest version of Lemmy, 0.18.0.

👎 Bad news: There are still some issues that may or may not affect usability. But so far, things seem to be pretty minor.

This version of Lemmy brings a bunch of performance- and usability optimizations, for instance:

• WebUI looks sleeker
• Better editor
• Resubscribing to Communities that show "Subscribe Pending" should actually subscribe now (works with lemmy.ml communities, but not lemmy.world, for instance, partially fixes this)
• 2 factor authentication (2FA) is now a thing*
• Custom emojis are now possible (maybe someone wants to make some FOSS emojis?)
• Improved error messages (no more white screens)
• Error messages during login and registration are finally fixed (fixes this)

Some issues I encountered so far:

• CAPTCHAs were patched out temporarily, so we're going to switch to manual approval in the meantime (GitHub Issue)
• "couldnt_find_object" error during search (GitHub Issue)
• *2FA implementation is not well done for non-tech-savyy users and might lead to self-lockout until password reset is issued (GitHub Issue)

⚠️ In case you encounter more issues, please let me know by commenting underneath this post or by posting in /c/fossware_support.

✌️

Updated lemmy to 0.18.1.rc.10 and lemmy-ui to 0.18.1.rc.11. ARM64 images on Docker Hub.