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Comment by gizmo | Hacker News Reader

This site isn't meant for general technical consumption. I don't understand why you would think otherwise. Why does this page have to explain what all the different cyber suites are, how SSL handshaking works, or why some hashes are no longer considered secure for cryptographic purposes? There are plenty of other websites out there that provide SSL primers. This website doesn't need to do that.

This isn't a failure of minimalism, it's a pretty cool page for people who are curious about the different SSL weaknesses that have been discovered over the years.

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It should at LEAST say it is targeting the browser for the tests, not someone's ssl site. I had no idea it was testing my phone until I went to the other test site link in the footer. I can't believe you go to such length defending the "UX" when it isn't even obvious what the test is for. Seriously.

The site has no such obligation. The site is for a very specific target audience: people who write web clients/web browsers. So the site isn't created for you, and it isn't meant for general consumption, and it doesn't have to explain anything.

It's a tool for web client developers, like it says in the github README. Which is one click away.

If the developers of this tool posted this as a SHOW HN, then yes, you'd have a point. But that's not what happened here.

Actually I am a developer and this is useful to my work so it is targeted exactly at someone like me. It would still help to have a description without going to github.

Just some /constructive/ feedback...

Sure, it would help, in that it would have saved you a single click.

If you had submitted the link to HN with a descriptive title, then there wouldn't have been any confusion here either. So you're complaining about the site not saying what it does (even though it says so right in the README) while at the same time submitting the link to HN with a title that doesn't say what the link is about.

As some /constructive/ feedback, do you appreciate the irony?

I didn't submit the link

I went to read the readme and it doesn't say anywhere that it is a tool for web client developers.

Anyways this kind of info should not be hidden a click away in a github readme, it belongs in the actual web page.

He might think otherwise because it climbed to the top of HN but doesn't have any explanation (here or on the actual page) of what it does or who/what it might be useful for.

And for people who are curious they can read the comments here that explain what it does or click on the large github banner in the corner and check out the README.

Calling this site a "failure of minimalism" is unnecessary and mean.

He's not asking for a primer on SSL, but at least a sentence or two as to the purpose of the site.

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