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676
General Software Discussion / Re: Lemon - Encrypted, Distributed, Decentralized Email
« Last post by Tuxman on May 09, 2017, 02:20 AM »
The big advantage of email (my dictionary suggests that there is no hyphen in it, sorry, my fault) is that almost everyone can participate. That is because of the standard protocols. Add a new protocol and try to convince everyone to handle it. Enjoy.   8)

I disagree with PGP to be difficult to set up. Modern email clients make it a matter of a couple of clicks and you're done. (Well, almost.) I consider the time of Outlook Express to be over as of today.  :) I agree that more people should use PGP though. Only two people I've ever had in my inbox encrypt every single email. Snowden is sooo 2013, is he?

The idea might be good, but it lacks an explanation why it should be better than existing solutions.
677
General Software Discussion / Re: Lemon - Encrypted, Distributed, Decentralized Email
« Last post by Tuxman on May 08, 2017, 07:04 PM »
My understanding of Lemon is that it is a new paradigm on email. It provides similar functionality in a similar format, but with some differences in the underlying technology.
-Deozaan (May 08, 2017, 06:48 PM)

Then it's not "email" at all.

That is to say, they provide two different services:

1. A traditional web-based & mobile client service similar to Gmail and other mail services, or optionally your own email client using SMTP/IMAP. This does indeed have a server for account management and SMTP stuff.
2. A fully decentralized app (DApp) with no central server, and seemingly no server at all. This is still in testing and being developed. In theory, even if Lemon goes out of business, this version of the service could live on in perpetuity. But I'm not sure how or if it could communicate with traditional email addresses at that stage.
-Deozaan (May 08, 2017, 06:48 PM)

So it is, basically,

1. an overpriced traditional e-mail server with SMTP/IMAP/POP3? (again, their really shady website makes things harder to understand*),
2. a non-free "alternative" to the niche BitMessage/Tox/whatever P2P chat platforms.

While 1. may or may not be interesting for some people who don't want to run a free mail server on a cheap VPS (but then again, there's ProtonMail for (allegedly) secure, anonymous mails), 2. might have all the buzzwords on its side, attracting less technical people with its shinyness, but the whole concept collapses if you see the big picture.

As they seem to be entirely different entities, the whole "decentralized e-mail" thingy does only work great if both participants use Lemon. You might see where the problem lies because virtually nobody does. Thus, the vast majority of potential Lemon customers will be limited to "encrypted e-mail" (in their web browser, which is inadequate enough IMO) which can easily be achieved for free.
An OpenPGP implementation is available for your normal e-mail client as well. You can even host the whole thing yourself if you feel like it.

----

* note: I had a quick look at the provided websites and I could not find any information about the standard e-mail transport backend. This is what I meant by "security through obscurity". Assumption confirmed.

Good night for now. :)
678
General Software Discussion / Re: Lemon - Encrypted, Distributed, Decentralized Email
« Last post by Tuxman on May 08, 2017, 05:42 PM »
What part of that mentions SMTP/IMAP?
-Deozaan (May 08, 2017, 05:24 PM)

I guess the "email" part.
Because, you know, an e-mail service without support for SMTP and IMAP (or POP3 (lol POP3)) won't really serve any e-mails.

From what I can see, Lemon is "a blockchain" which can also speak IMAP/SMTP over servers when required. Sorry, but there is no way to send a valid e-mail without a valid e-mail server. The website is incredibly shady about that. I can understand why.

Security by obscurity, huh? Come on, trust them!  :Thmbsup:
679
General Software Discussion / Re: Lemon - Encrypted, Distributed, Decentralized Email
« Last post by Tuxman on May 08, 2017, 02:49 PM »
So your quote was wrong in the first place. My own mail server

  • has no content scraping,
  • has unlimited users for less money per month,
  • grants me full and open source end-to-end encryption,
  • can also handle my mails to mom.

The only thing it doesn't have are buzzwords like "zomg blockchain". Because, really, WTF.
Enjoy your inferior third-party service, dudes.  8)
680
General Software Discussion / Re: Lemon - Encrypted, Distributed, Decentralized Email
« Last post by Tuxman on May 08, 2017, 02:36 PM »
You don't know about Gmail?
-Deozaan (May 08, 2017, 02:33 PM)

Gmail is not a mail server software.
681
General Software Discussion / Re: Lemon - Encrypted, Distributed, Decentralized Email
« Last post by Tuxman on May 08, 2017, 01:32 PM »
I think this is a pretty clever new email service.
-Deozaan (May 06, 2017, 12:42 AM)

No, it's not.

First of all, Lemon features end-to-end encryption so that no one--not even Lemon engineers--can read the content of your emails, except of course you and the intended recipient.
-Deozaan (May 06, 2017, 12:42 AM)

PGP is not a new thing and does pretty much exactly this.

No scraping the content of your emails to better advertise to you or gather personal/private information.
-Deozaan (May 06, 2017, 12:42 AM)

Nor does any mail server software I know.

In fact, there are no ads in your email period.
-Deozaan (May 06, 2017, 12:42 AM)

Hooray, I guess.

"The way it works is that the passphrase you use to unlock your emails is not saved anywhere / on our server and therefore even our engineers cannot read your emails. (Don't forget your passphrase!)"
-Deozaan (May 06, 2017, 12:42 AM)

Have I mentioned PGP yet?

Secondly, Lemon is powered via IPFS[1] and Ethereum's blockchain technology.
-Deozaan (May 06, 2017, 12:42 AM)

Bingo!

This allows Lemon to be decentralized. (...) In fact, there is no server at all.
-Deozaan (May 06, 2017, 12:42 AM)

That's not how SMTP/IMAP works. But if that's all that matters to you: There are roughly 5734265 different messengers based on "decentralized" infrastructure.

The future of the internet, using P2P/distributed technologies such as IPFS and Ethereum, is developing into something really amazing. :Thmbsup:
-Deozaan (May 06, 2017, 12:42 AM)

I seriously hope they'll claim bankruptcy next week.
682
Found Deals and Discounts / Re: SoftMaker Office: Full version (with free Partition Manager) -> 75% off
« Last post by Tuxman on May 03, 2017, 08:42 AM »
Also working: f12to16 (probably the "FreeOffice" f).
683
Found Deals and Discounts / SoftMaker Office: Full version (with free Partition Manager) -> 75% off
« Last post by Tuxman on May 03, 2017, 07:00 AM »
At least in Germany, you can currently get SoftMaker Office Standard or Professional for less than 23 €, including a free copy of the Paragon Partition Manager. Not sure about other countries though. Try it.
684
General Software Discussion / Re: SQLite, SQL, SQLite Expert
« Last post by Tuxman on May 01, 2017, 11:06 AM »
Was that a question?  :huh:
685
Living Room / Re: Programming/Coder humor
« Last post by Tuxman on April 20, 2017, 06:48 PM »
Ah, that already counts as a joke. Sorry then.
686
Living Room / Re: Programming/Coder humor
« Last post by Tuxman on April 20, 2017, 06:44 PM »
This pic is an actual screen-cap and not a touch-up job; see anything 'funny' about it?
-holt (April 20, 2017, 06:40 PM)

The language switcher is on the Pale Moon title bar?  :huh:
687
Living Room / Re: Programming/Coder humor
« Last post by Tuxman on April 20, 2017, 06:42 PM »
 :huh:

688
Living Room / Re: Get legal access to paywalled research and science papers free with Unpaywall
« Last post by Tuxman on April 17, 2017, 12:19 PM »
The Pirate Party would install open access to tax-funded research papers if enough of you folks voted for us.  :P
689
Living Room / Re: Get legal access to paywalled research and science papers free with Unpaywall
« Last post by Tuxman on April 17, 2017, 08:30 AM »
Awesome. Could come in handy. (I needed something like that a couple of times...)
690
Site/Forum Features / Bug: The forum thinks that all links are web links
« Last post by Tuxman on April 10, 2017, 08:32 AM »
irc:// links don't work. (See the infobox.)
 
691
General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a new browser
« Last post by Tuxman on April 09, 2017, 04:19 AM »
Sorry, but which rant is that?
-IainB (April 08, 2017, 07:21 PM)

Mozilla basically killed off Firefox.
692
General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a new browser
« Last post by Tuxman on April 08, 2017, 06:15 PM »
The problem with the browser market of 2017 is that it's basically a choice between bloat Gecko or bloat Webkit. Pale Moon and SeaMonkey are your (and my) obvious options here unless we're interested in a giant waste of resources. Chrome-based browsers like Vivaldi are awful in this concern.

However, when it comes to a small and fast UI without clutter and you are fine with typing instead of clicking, qutebrowser might be another option:
https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=43667.0

Also, insert my usual rant about the stupidity that Mozilla has become here.  :mad:
693
General Software Discussion / Re: Python 3 - advice required on installing appropriate system/interpreter.
« Last post by Tuxman on April 06, 2017, 05:39 PM »
My NANY 2017 submission was written in Object Pascal ("Delphi"). You can never know how to use enough languages.  :D

I guess the main problem with Pascal is that Borland (Embarcadero, Inprose, Codegear... whoever owns the Delphi tools now) stopped providing "Starter Editions" (or affordable student licenses) for Pascal/Delphi years ago and universities/schools rarely have enough budget to pay the ridiculous prices. As Borland (et cetera...) was the main vendor for Pascal and Object Pascal (Free Pascal/Lazarus is a rather recent thing), it was probably mostly an economic decision to start with Python instead.

I don't really like Python, it teaches you a horrible code style and it lacks brackets. To each his own, I guess.
694
General Software Discussion / Re: Python 3 - advice required on installing appropriate system/interpreter.
« Last post by Tuxman on April 06, 2017, 01:41 PM »
I miss the good old times when Pascal was the de-facto learning/teaching language. There was Borland's product and it had anything you needed. Sigh!

695
Mini-Reviews by Members / qutebrowser - Mini-Review
« Last post by Tuxman on April 01, 2017, 06:01 PM »
Basic Info

App Namequtebrowser
App URLhttp://qutebrowser.org/
App Version Reviewed0.10.1
Supported OSesmost (or even all?) OSs which have Python 3 and QtWebKit available
Support Methods
Pricing Schemequtebrowser is licensed under the terms of the GPLv3, meaning that you're - at least - free to use it without spending any money.
Screencast Video URLhttps://www.youtube..../watch?v=glfJJfTEB2g

I8ORIgE.png

Intro:

In 2017, the world wide web has long lost one of its key features, namely its simplicity. Remember when you could just visit most websites with a text-mode browser and not lose any relevant information? By today, the web has turned into a giant blob of anti-features, making it unnecessarily hard to keep a low memory and CPU footprint while trying to use it. Browsers like NetSurf which feature their own engine and manage to use as few resources as possible are neat, but they fail to be compatible with just anything, at least right now.

A pretty good compromise between a low footprint and an adequately large feature set is the qutebrowser which is amazing in multiple ways: It is fast even with its Python core, it is efficient even with its QtWebKit engine, it is accessible even though being modeled after Vim.

Here is my review.

Who is this app designed for:

The qutebrowser is a great alternative for the Unix-only uzbl browser and Firefox's to-be-deprecated Vimperator and Pentadactyl extensions, focusing on Vim-like UI and keyboard features. Having to use the mouse can be annoying in a text-based medium like the web.

If you prefer a minimal waste of screen space and efficient keybindings to giant toolbars and weird mouse (or even touch) gestures, qutebrowser could be for you.

The Good

If you know Vim, qutebrowser won't be a big deal for you. You can use most of Vim's basic keybindings (including hjkl), one-key commands (like O for opening something in a new tab) and some Vimperator-like commands like :tab-close. (You can still switch between the tabs with your mouse if you want to.) qutebrowser will show a DuckDuckGo tab and a Quickstart manual on its first start (see the screenshot above).

cheatsheet-big.png

There is a built-in ad blocker, advertised on the first start: Just type :adblock-update and you're good. Also, have I mentioned the low resource usage?

qute-memory.png

If you're not happy with some of the defaults, the built-in settings page provides a couple of rather advanced options including things like the window title format and the statusbar padding. Sorely missed from recent Firefoxes. And: Of course the qutebrowser has an "insert mode" for forms.  ;)

The needs improvement section

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

How does it compare to similar apps

Compared to Firefox with Vimperator or Pentadactyl, qutebrowser is not nearly as extensible but it saves you quite some headaches. There are official FAQ about that. :)

Conclusions

I'll see if this will be my default browser after Firefox's effective death on Nov. 14. You can never have enough options. For now, I'm impressed - I uninstalled NetSurf and dismissed Otter and I'll give this one a ride for a while.  :Thmbsup:

Enjoy.
696
Living Room / Re: Anyone know german?
« Last post by Tuxman on March 27, 2017, 08:24 PM »
Reminds me of the puzzle: What is the question, the answer to which is "9W"?

- to which, the correct question to ask is:
   Herr Vagner, is your surname spelt with a "V"?    :D
-IainB (March 27, 2017, 08:16 PM)

This is wrong in two possible ways.

Either "9W" is pronounced English or it's pronounced German.
If English: The "W" word does not have any equivalent in German. What the fuck is a "Nein Dabbelju"?
If German: The "9" is a Neun ("nojn"), not a Nine.

You failed this one.

...and another puzzle: What is the question, the answer to which is "Doctor Livingstone I presume"?

- to which, the correct question to ask is:
   What is your full name please, Doctor Presume?     :D

Huh?  :huh:

Ah, I slay me.

Good!
697
Living Room / Re: Anyone know german?
« Last post by Tuxman on March 27, 2017, 08:24 AM »
anyone know german?
-kalos (March 26, 2017, 06:01 PM)

Nein.
698
DC Member Programs and Projects / Re: blogcpp: Static blogging in C++17
« Last post by Tuxman on March 22, 2017, 09:07 PM »
Version 4 is released.
699
General Software Discussion / Re: LessPass password manager
« Last post by Tuxman on March 22, 2017, 05:45 PM »
Also, requiring Docker for a self-hosted installation is a no-go for me.
700
General Software Discussion / Re: Download manager
« Last post by Tuxman on March 11, 2017, 01:08 PM »
This is not an exaggeration. The author of DownThemAll! has left the Mozilla ecosystem and the extension will stop working before the end of 2017 without any chance for a decent replacement.
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