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liberiaon Tell HN: MS forcing Edge shortcut on desktop

Here's a guide on how to prevent this from happening: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/01/21/how-to-block-microsoft-edg...

> The workaround requires edits of the Registry. There is a global edit that applies to all Edge channels and edits for each individual version of the web browser.

liberiaon Explore Wikipedia's New Look

I browse with Safari on iOS with JS disabled by default. I do this for privacy and accessibility reasons (gotta stop those annoying popup modals, trackers and other annoyances).

One thing I noticed with Wikipedia with JS /enabled/, all the sub-categories of a topic are by default, closed.

But when I browse with JS disabled, all the sub-categories are /opened/ and I have the full article.

Since most people browse with JS enabled, this means they have to make additional clicks just to read the sub-categories.

Which leads me to question: which version is better? The JS where you have to make additional clicks, or the no-js version where you get the full article?

liberiaon Do Facebook ads work for you?

Sorry to hear about your bounce rate. But even though ADs do not correlate to more sales, your message / slogan / unique selling point is in the minds of prospects, and the purchases will be potentially delayed.

I'm only saying this because as a consumer, I bought stuff roughly a year later when I had the money, even after seeing the AD a year ago! ADs plant the seed, then sales naturally follow, albeit delayed.

liberiaon Mastodon client from the people behind Tweetbot

> the current list of Mastodon servers feels very limited

Try this site: https://instances.social/

It helped me find some instances that matched my interests. Just keep in mind, most instances will die out if they're not sufficiently funded either by donations or the pocket money of the owners. This is why I treat all my Mastodon accounts as potentially ephemeral accounts that will die out given enough time. The more popular instances seem to be in it for the long haul, so go with those (as much as you enjoy the smaller instances).

liberiaon Ask HN: What made programming “click” for you?

The 'View Source' in browsers is what got me started initially in webdev. It was amazing seeing how sites were pieced together, and it was all progress from there. In the start I copied a lot of code, but then got comfortable writing my own.

Also the ability to write code in an editor and see it instantly reflected in the browser by hitting refresh was a game changer. No compiling. No writing code in a black box where you don't get instant feedback or don't know if the code is behaving correctly.

liberiaon Rackspace founder says it’s ‘on trajectory of death.’

Recently I went to sign up for Rackspace and their systems flagged me as 'Suspicious'. I tried registering without a VPN in a brand new session, and again: 'Suspicious'. I provided all the right details for them, correct contact and address, etc I wonder what their churn rate for auto-flagging away potential customers is? They are in the business of taking people's money in exchange for services right?

liberiaon Tell HN: How to close your LinkedIn account

I got a hard lockout to my LinkedIN account a few months ago, since I enabled 2FA and lost the device. I had to send a passport scan to support so they could verify it was me, so I could close my account. Not that I minded that much.

It goes to show you their support team is actually active and don't ignore queries (even if the service is free).

liberiaon Exceeding 1.5°C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points

There's an interesting movie called Don't Look Up[0] which is a metaphor for climate change politics.

> The impact event is an allegory for climate change, and the film is a satire of government, political, celebrity, and media indifference to the climate crisis.[6][7]

After watching, I agreed that when the world eventually burns, people will be live streaming and tweeting about it instead of going out and actually doing something about it. We all have a part to play in this, and armchair activism behind the comfort of social media will do jack shit to solve this problem. Addressing climate change head on will be the biggest amount of cooperation humanity will ever have to do. After we address it, it will not be as hard to maintain decent temps. We can sail on this rock for millennia once we get out there and make shit happen.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Look_Up

liberiaon KeePass is the free, open source, light-weight and easy-to-use password manager

I trust this over Bitwarden or Lastpass since you have to trust those services with your data (and I don't). Web-based password managers can be hacked, or have their login interface laced with third-party code that could be exfiltrating your master passphrase. My strategy is using KeePass and keeping multiple copies of the database in various cloud providers in case my local copy is lost/corrupted. It takes under a minute to sync my local copy to Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, etc

liberiaon Ask HN: Alternative to Google Analytics for user flows

https://goaccess.io/

Might be a bit overkill, but it's more accurate since it captures raw logs and captures even users with JS turned off or blocking your analytics script.

There's also:

https://clicky.com/

https://www.plerdy.com/

liberiaon Ask HN: What is your reason for not choosing to use PHP for your next project?

It's hard to code secure PHP. When starting, I was like: 'So I can just pass a query parameter with <script>alert(1)</script> and do trivial XSS on random sites if I wanted to?' Smart PHP coders always sanitize, but for PHP newbies, it's easy to introduce some vulnerabilities if you don't do defensive coding practices.

There's things like directory traversal attacks too (putting ../../ in requests etc) which you have to prevent. PHP doesn't do it for you, you have to be very defensive with it. Which is why I use PHP sparingly and use Python and Perl more. Those languages even still have potential vulns, but not nearly as bad as the ones you can introduce in PHP IMHO.

liberiaon The problem isn't that you're too busy

Worth reading this gem from 2010 too:

https://scottberkun.com/2010/the-cult-of-busy/

liberiaon Ask HN: What HN tooling do you use to enhance your HN experience?

> I've often wanted to follow specific individuals

I just create a load of bookmarks to user profiles in a Firefox bookmark folder found in the bookmarks bar then click 'Open all in tabs' which spawns a bunch of tabs, where I can check what my favorite profiles are posting. Some of my faves:

https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=Tomte

https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=todsacerdoti

https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=memorable

liberiaon Ask HN: What's your strategy to handle your phone being stolen?

Just don't use your phone in such a way that having it stolen would mean your whole digital life is gone. Use it as a radio to call people or emergency services, and use things like the alarm clock or calendar and nothing else.

liberiaon Put down devices, let your mind wander, study suggests

Well as a hacker, boredom is the enemy and we’re always at war with boredom. For a hacker, boredom is a form of death.

liberiaon Put down devices, let your mind wander, study suggests

All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

Blaise Pascal

For another spin on it.

That quote is brilliant and profound. Sad that thinking is regarded as an afflicting disease and our devices are the cure.

I purposefully dedicate an hour to just do jack shit and be alone with my thoughts.

‘Oh you saw something in your mind? Relax it’s called an idea. Get used to them’

liberiaon Ask HN: How Do I Start Over?

For me, I stopped being rigid. That takes courage to get out of a comfort zone. Try something totally oblique to what you’re used to doing. Recognize your strengths and build on top of them. (For me one of my strengths is curation and organizing information). You can only build on strength. Hope this helps.

liberiaon Tweet Quine. Recursive URL

How this was done: https://oisinmoran.com/quinetweet

liberiaon Ask HN: What's the best free general purpose security software?

ClamAV is good. No bloat and is a very simple program that Just Works. Also it’s compatible with Linux which is great since Linux is my daily driver. I do a scan every 3 months just to have some good security posture, although some classes of malware can evade AV, so it’s no silver bullet.

liberiaon Ask HN: How Do I Start Over?

Do something that gives you energy both mentally and physically instead of something that saps your energy and leaves you drained. What’s your social media engagement look like? The two most important days of someone’s life is when they were born and the day they find out why.

liberiaon The unlikely odds of making it big on TikTok

Well I make sure the post is on topic. So funny stuff goes to humor groups. Inspirational quotes go to all the wisdom/spirituality/philosophy groups. Even better if it’s your own material. I find reposts of other’s content a bit shallow and meaningless.

liberiaon Show HN: Collective list of bots on Twitter, feel free to participate

The Trump Truth Social repost account is suspended!

liberiaon Google Timer is gone

What kind of game are Google playing at? They’re like evolution at play and routinely prune and trim away anything not working for them. They’re so Darwinian.

liberiaon The unlikely odds of making it big on TikTok

I’ve figured out a way to get loads of views on Facebook. The trick is to use their Groups feature. Join every group that has no less than 100,000 members then when sharing choose ‘Share to group’ and post to every group you joined. I’ve got silly little cat videos getting 1M views within a week of posting…

Part of going viral is luck too. If you’re lucky some high profile account will share your post, and the popularity soars.

liberiaon Ask HN: What's your favorite math/logic puzzle?

x = x + 1

liberiaon ExifLooter – finds geolocation info on all URLs and directories

I religiously strip metadata with ExifCleaner[0]. Thankfully old cameras don’t have GPS sensors, but with the new ones you have to be careful, including smartphone cameras. Metadata in images serves no other purpose than invading privacy. That and being able to sort media by location, time, etc

[0] https://exifcleaner.com/

liberiaon Ask HN: No one talks about hackers' relationships. What has worked for you?

Tried Bumble, an app that can find local people to meet up with in your area. You can also use Bumble for dating, but in my case I just wanted some new friends. People back in the day just went to the local pub, but those days are over.

liberiaon Ask HN: Why are there so many shady browsers in the iOS App Store?

Firefox and Brave are more privacy respecting than the lesser known shady ones. Firefox and Brave can block ADs, mitigate fingerprinting, enforce HTTPS etc

liberiaon Ask HN: What are your favorite subreddits and why?

/r/privacy is good if you want to learn about privacy or help people with their privacy journey.

/r/netsec is my daily habit too. Always bound to find detailed explanations of vulns