Hister indexes every web page you visit and lets you search the full text of your browsing history offline “Have you ever wished your browser history was more than just a collection of URLs? As it is, the standard search history is kind of useless. Sure, you can see the title of the page you visited, maybe a bit of metadata, but not much more than that. For any actual functionality, like searching for a specific page you visited that you can't quite remember the name of, your browser's built-in history search falls flat on its face (like my six-month-old did as I was writing this sentence). That's where Hister comes in. This open-source, self-hosted tool does more than just track your activity; it indexes every site you visit, capturing the contents of the page for easy search and retrieval later.” I was a bit sceptical on first reading this, especially where browser extensions are involved, but it is an open source project, and there is this privacy statement in their documention: Hister clients only communicate with the designated server, and the server does not “phone home” or share any of your browsing history with anyone else. The source code is publicly accessible, so we can be audited by anyone who wants to check! What is interesting is that many self-hosted server applications that do this sort of thing, have quite resource intensive browsers running, and are often fooled by anti-bot detection. Hister actually has your browser doing this so no wasted resources, and you have the full power of your main browser at hand. The server needs to be available, but could also run on your own PC so no NAS etc setup needs to be run. However, the server side can also run in a docker container if you already have that setup. It can on something as light as a Raspberry Pi. As far as I can see it is only saving the text of pages you visit, and not PDF or HTML archives of the pages, so again this side is extremely lightweight. See

XDA

Hister indexes every web page I visit and lets me search the full text of my browsing history offline

The browser history you don't want to erase.

or

Hister

#technology #search #history #browsers #opensource

More than 800 gamers took an exam to prove they could complete an '80s adventure game without peeking at a walkthrough—and only 2 passed “Designed by developer Woe Industries, the AGAT challenged players to complete an '80s adventure game without using a walkthrough. Players weren't told what adventure game they'd be playing in advance, and they were monitored via webcam and microphone by a legitimate online proctoring software to determine if they were looking up hints on a second window, using their phones to cheat, or getting help from someone off-screen.” I remember playing Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest, etc back in those days, probably then on my Commodore C64 or Amiga. These were more difficult than Doom as you did have to think quite a bit. These games seemed advanced back then as prior to these it was text adventure games without any graphics. Also, no Google Search so you sat for hours being stuck somewhere in the game until you got past the block. The linked article also has a link to a Twitch stream of the game during the test. Needless to say I already thought I knew where the key was, and see I was right. Back then it was not about the fancy graphics, it was about the storyline, the puzzles, etc. See

PC Gamer

800 gamers tried to beat an

Only .25% completed the AGAT: the Adventure Game Aptitude Test, designed by fiendish developer Woe Industries.

#technology #gaming #retro

This Docker Compose visual builder is the tool I wish I had as a beginner “If you’ve ever attempted to run too many containers on the same machine, you may have encountered failed deployments because multiple services tried accessing the same port. Fortunately, DCM sidesteps that issue by checking for port conflicts in your multi-container Compose files. Going back to our network stack example, Nginx and Pi-hole both use ports 80 and 443 on the host. If you try to deploy these services with the same Compose files, DCM detects the port conflicts and assigns different numbers to the second container.” With over 40 to 50 containers running on one of my servers I constantly run into that ports clashing issue (when ports are exposed to the host machine). This tool does look quite interesting as well as how it handles volume mappings. It also makes me realise how Portainer really needs to take a few steps forward with regard to better stack editing. I'm going to be looking a bit deeper into this app. It looks like it will work in tandem with Portainer too. Basically DCM will help you create a clean and functional docker-compose file to paste into Portainer. See

XDA

This Docker Compose visual builder is the tool I wish I had as a beginner

It's also quite handy for Docker veterans

or the project site at

GitHub

GitHub - ajnart/dcm: DockerComposeMaker (DCM) is a self-hostable website to help you pick and create a docker-compose.yml file for your home server. Discover new containers, discover and share a config in a couple of clicks!

DockerComposeMaker (DCM) is a self-hostable website to help you pick and create a docker-compose.yml file for your home server. Discover new contai...

#technology #docker #selfhosting

Meet Roomy: An Open-Source Discord Alternative for the Decentralised Web “Roomy is an open-source Discord alternative built on the AT Protocol (ATProto), the same protocol that powers Bluesky, with ActivityPub (the protocol behind Mastodon, Pixelfed, Pleroma, and others) planned for the near future. Currently in alpha, it sits somewhere between Matrix and Discord in terms of its practical position in the broader chat ecosystem.” It is built on open protocols (no lock-in) and right now you can sign into the web interface using an existing Bluesky login, to be followed soon by any ActivityPub based ID (Mastodon, Pixelfed, Pleroma, etc). Interestingly, it will be bridging many diverse and decentralised networks. From what I understand of it, posts that each person makes to this service, physically go to their own registered servers (decentralised) with Roomy providing the merged view. It seems there are quite a few features still to be implemented such as Fediverse login, moderation regarding removing of users from a room, encryption, self-hosting of Roomy, desktop/mobile apps, and more. Right now Bluesky users can use their login to test it out. See

It's FOSS

Meet Roomy: An Open-Source Discord Alternative for the Decentralized Web

Looking for a Discord alternative? Roomy is an open-source, decentralized platform built for communities that value privacy and control.

and Roomy at

Roomy

A way to be on the web!

#technology #opensource #socialnetworks #decentralised

SSD thumb drives could be better than cheap USB flash drives “Instead of getting a cheap but very sluggish flash drive, consider buying a USB SSD that looks like a regular thumb drive but is way faster and only slightly more expensive.” I haven't bought a cheap flash drive for quite a while, so did not really realise these SSD thumb drives were available. But they look worthwhile considering especially if the data volumes are a bit more. They are certainly a lot more compact and mobile than carrying around whole external SSD drives. See

How-To Geek

Please stop buying standard USB flash drives in 2026

Don't buy a plain old USB flash drive, buy this instead

#technology #storage

Been waiting for this! Proton now has a Google Sheets clone with end-to-end encryption Spreadsheets are finally rolling out over the next few days for Proton users. I actually use spreadsheets more often than documents, for product comparisons or purchase decisions. So this is something that has been holding me back a bit from using Proton Drive more fully. Yes, the feature set is going to be rather minimal right now compared to more mature products, and it also is not (yet) exporting to ODF format. "Proton Sheets is protected by end-to-end encryption, ensuring that no one else, not even Proton, can access your spreadsheet and the information it contains. Whether you’re tracking your home budget or managing a multi-team project, Sheets can help you get the job done. Use built-in formulas to perform analysis, turn raw data into easily understood charts, and collaborate with remote teams knowing your information is safe." See

How-To Geek

Proton now has a Google Sheets clone with end-to-end encryption

End-to-end encryption with your collaborative spreadsheets.

#technology #privacy #spreadsheets

Why I Ditched My Smartwatch for a Retro-Styled Casio Watch This video takes you through my decision-making process and reasons for ditching my Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 (and other smartwatches) for a modern, retro-styled Casio ABL-100WE watch. The video starts with the straw that broke the camel's back, and concludes with two other possibilities I'll weigh up early in 2026. Watch #technology #smartwatches #retro #Casio #gadget

Viseron is a self-hosted camera monitoring app and the perfect Frigate alternative “If you've ever wanted to keep an eye on your surroundings without sending data to third-party servers, you've probably heard of Frigate. The open-source is a popular choice as an NVR that runs locally and taps into the power of AI to detect people, cars, and more. But Frigate isn't the only game in town. There's another contender worth looking at. It's called Viseron, and it's a self-hosted camera monitoring platform that offers a polished interface, widespread hardware support, and, most importantly, it works on your local network. Viseron is designed from the ground up to be simple, flexible, and private. There are no subscriptions to worry about, no hidden restrictions, and, of course, no cloud dependencies to worry about.” Having any CCTV cameras running 24/7 in or around your home has to be a concern for privacy. We have seen way too may vulnerabilities, with even a website dedicated to showing you everyone's exposed cameras, which included children's nursery cams. My own cameras are restricted to a VLAN that has no Internet access (ingoing or outgoing). So it is good to see more and more self-hosted alternatives becoming available for everyone. This one even has AI-powered object detection, which my much older Reolink system does not have. See

XDA

This self-hosted camera monitoring app is the perfect Frigate alternative

This open-source alternative to Frigate offers a modern interface and AI-based object detection.

#technology #privacy #opensource #CCTV

Tecmint's 6 Best Linux Distros for Gaming and Playing Windows Games “The good news is that gaming on Linux has improved dramatically in recent years. Besides the many native Linux titles already available, you can also play a huge selection of Windows-only games using compatibility tools like Proton (built into Steam) and Wine. In fact, nearly 80% of the most popular Windows games now run on Linux with little to no extra effort.” For myself, I've been using Manjaro Linux the last few years, and I am playing all the games I've needed to so far on Linux. My list includes: * Snowrunner * War Thunder multiplayer * Ships at Sea * Assetto Corsa EVO * Assetto Corsa Competizione * BeamNG Drive * Train Fever * Euro Truck Sim in multiplayer * American Truck Sim * FORZA Horizon 4 * Hell Let Loose * Red Dead Redemption II * Dirt Rally 2.0 * rFactor 2 * Train Sim World 5 All in all, it is 77 games, so I have more than enough to keep me playing. I've not got Microsoft Flight Sim 2024 so cannot comment on that one, but the only one that I think did not play for me on Linux was World of Subways 3. See

7 Best Linux Distros for Gaming and Playing Windows Games

7 Best Linux Distros for Running Windows Games Smoothly

These Linux distros come with drivers, preinstalled tools, and optimizations, so you can install them and start gaming right away without extra setup.

#technology #linux #gaming

[URGENT] DEF CON Researcher Exposes How Password Managers Betray Your Trust "Czech security researcher Marek Tóth demonstrated at DEF CON 33 how a single click on any malicious website can steal passwords, credit cards, and 2FA codes from 40 million users of major password managers, with vendors like 1Password and LastPass refusing to fix the vulnerabilities." What this brings home yet once again is, in regard to security, the easier something is to use is usually not better for security. In this case, much of the issue is around the autofilling of passwords on page loading (because that is easier). So, to some extent, this is all helped along by settings we choose to set. Again for subdomains vs exact domain, it is easier to match to just the base domain… Many password managers will be addressing these issues in the coming week or two, but it is worth rethinking your "ease of use" settings on your password manager so long. See

Sam Bent

[URGENT] DEF CON Researcher Exposes How Password Managers Betray Your Trust

Czech security researcher Marek Tóth demonstrated at DEF CON 33 how a single click on any malicious website can steal passwords, credit cards, and...

#technology #security #vulnerabilities

You can once again buy an official Commodore C64 "Basically, there is a whole gamut of ways to get some part of the C64 experience, ranging from emulator-only to a full hardware DIY or pre-assembled format. Each of which come with their own price tag, starting at $0 for running VICE on your existing system. With so much choice we can only hope that the renewed Commodore company will become something more than Yet Another C64 Experience." The video in the linked article gives a good run down of the various Commodore C64 options up to now, before ending with the details and cost of the revived "official" C64. Apart from holding the world record for the most microcomputer sales of all time. I had one as well, after my ZX81, and it was a major breakthrough with colour graphics, sound, etc. I have very happy memories from that C64, although I must say I did enjoy my Amiga 500 a lot more as the game quality was just that much better, and it had a lot of games. I still play some of those Amiga games today such as Ports of Call every now and again on my Linux PC using an emulator. So the question is, would there still be interest in 2025 for the C64? Well it certainly has been modernised a bit with regard to HDMI and peripheral support, and apparently many thousands of the unofficial C64s are still being sold. See

Hackaday

Commodore Is Back Selling New C64s, But Should You Buy Them?

It’s hard to argue with nostalgia, but you can toss a bucket of cold facts over it. In the case of the recent rescuing of the Commodore brand...

#technology #Commodore #retrocomputing

Homepage - An Open Source Self-Hosted Dashboard Homepage is a modern, fully static, fast, secure fully proxied, highly customizable application dashboard with integrations for over 100 services and translations into multiple languages. Easily configured via YAML files or through docker label discovery. With features like quick search, bookmarks, weather support, a wide range of integrations and widgets, an elegant and modern design, and a focus on performance, Homepage is your ideal start to the day and a handy companion throughout it. My video explains why I moved from Heimdall to Homepage. It also shows what various service and information widgets are available, what my dashboard looks like, what the various parts do, and how the configuration files work. My docker compose file is also unpacked. Watch #technology #selfhosted #opensource #dashboard

Various desktop Linux tips for newbies I'm also seeing more and more new Linux users popping up. They're noticeable for often saying "why did they not do this earlier". The point is, today's Linux is very different from 20+ years ago. It generally just installs and works, often looking very similar to what users experienced before (meaning basically everything can be done in the graphical menus and windows). Linux gets a bit more interesting if you venture into using the AUR or Git versions of apps (you have to enable this, as these are more bleeding edge). This is where dependencies may break, and you need a bit of terminal skill often to fix things, but the good news is, you're not losing any data. Over the years I've also opted to having all my user data (the stuff under /home) in its own partition so that is it fully separate from the main OS. The reason was in the early years I used to format the drive and do clean installs, or was distro hopping. Nowadays, I just use Manjaro KDE, and it just keeps updating all then time - have not reinstalled for many years now (and no nagging to activate it or end of life coming). You may wonder what happens if a distro is no longer supported? Well firstly it keeps working, and it may well still pull some patches and updates. But usually you will be able to migrate to using some other distro, and your user data all stays intact. But this is also a good reason for picking one of the many mainstream distros, that should be around still for a very long time (measuring that long time in terms of Windows release cycles). No-one has to move to Linux, but for those curious enough to want to find out more, the usual approach is to start with a liveboot version and just run it from a USB stick or external drive to test it out a bit. The next step is typically to install it side-by-side with Windows, but I'd really recommend a separate hard drive, as Windows does some odd things to the boot partition sometimes. Linux can access the user data on a Windows drive, but I'd be careful with that, as Windows can lock the drive if it uses hibernation mode. The point is, lots of things are possible for Linux. One will find of course that many companies only bring out their software for Windows and macOS. And example is Stream Deck. But I discovered two excellent 3rd party apps that work even better under Linux with Stream Deck. Da Vinci Resolve for example produces world-class video editing software that runs on Linux natively, but there is also Kdenlive that will work just as well for most users. So always do a bit of research before buying software or hardware to choose wisely. Personally, for me, it's more about the freedom to what I want with it. See https://akselmo.dev/posts/how-to-linux-2025 #technology #Linux #opensource

Harper is a grammar checker that is on-device and open source "When it comes to grammar checking, Grammarly is the premium tool for it. It's a proprietary tool and it was among the first one to make a mark as a web-based Grammar checking tool. Then there is LanguageTool that is/was open source, made in Germany and offers hosted service for free or for a price (you get additional features). LanguageTool was acquired a couple of years back and since then it's privacy policy has changed as it processes data on US servers, instead of European ones." I'm trying out Harper and although it works fine, it is a very new product (less than a year old), so there are some improvements that can be made. For example, I'd like to see auto-correction rules we can add ourselves for whenever I type teh to be changed to the. But it is being updated regularly I see. Right now too it only supports English (but being open source I think that will change soon). It has plugins for Firefox, Chrome, Obsidian, WordPress, and it can be integrated into various code editors as well as into JavaScript/TypeScript/Rust codebases. There are no mobile apps as the view is that most keyboards have their own built-in spell and grammar checkers. But the privacy-first approach does mean no data going into someone's cloud, and does mean also better speed and even working offline. That would also mean right now no syncing of personal dictionaries across devices, but I'm sure that can be added in time to use Nextcloud, Dropbox, and other personal cloud services. See

It's FOSS

I Found a New Open Source Grammar Checker Tool And I Like it... Well... Kind of

Sometime simple is better. This new open source grammar checker is what we need in this age of data collection and AI.

and GitHub site at

GitHub

GitHub - Automattic/harper: Offline, privacy-first grammar checker. Fast, open-source, Rust-powered

Offline, privacy-first grammar checker. Fast, open-source, Rust-powered - Automattic/harper

#technology #opensource #spellchecker #privacy

A fascinating listen into the power of Public Relations, and how it became another term for propaganda. Awareness should be the school curriculum. "In this episode we'll meet the godfathers of American PR, Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays, and explore the origins and evolution of industry-funded experts who shaped everything from the breakfast table to our understanding of the economy and science." Listen at

Spreaker

S1 Ep1 | Fake Experts and Real Bacon

In this episode we'll meet the godfathers of American PR, Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays, and explore the origins and evolution of industry-funded...

Jack Dorsey made an open source peer-to-peer encrypted Bluetooth messaging app called Bitchat “Twitter co-founder and Block Head Jack Dorsey launched a new peer-to-peer messaging app over the weekend called Bitchat that runs entirely over Bluetooth. Bitchat relies on Bluetooth Low Energy mesh networks to send encrypted communications directly to nearby devices without requiring internet or cellular service.” Don't be too concerned about the Bluetooth range as this app sets up mesh connections across multiple peers, much like how Meshtastic and Reticulum radio works. So, hopping across two or more peers will quickly extend this reach. Bitchat is working over Bluetooth LE and the claims are that distance between peers could be as much as 300m. Certainly, for line of sight such distances should be easy to achieve. The plan in future seems to be to include Wi-Fi Direct as another connectivity option. I'm wondering if this could evolve in future to work something like the Reticulum network, across all sorts of protocols. As with Nostr and other similar projects, Bitchat requires no account creation, no servers, no e-mail or mobile phone registrations, and also it has password protected channels, and even a panic mode that will clear all data in the logo is triple-tapped. Right now, it is working on iOS devices through Apple Testflight, and an Android client is still expected to be released in the near future. As this type of app is normally easier to released for Android, I'm wondering if it was not primarily intended right now to protect the privacy of protesters inside the USA. See

The Verge

Jack Dorsey made an encrypted Bluetooth messaging app

Just don’t abbreviate it.

and the GitHub site at

GitHub

GitHub - permissionlesstech/bitchat: bluetooth mesh chat, IRC vibes

bluetooth mesh chat, IRC vibes. Contribute to permissionlesstech/bitchat development by creating an account on GitHub.

#technology #privacy #opensource #P2P

I'm enjoying playing Ships at Sea on Steam Games I did a short summary with quite a few photos at my blog at

GadgeteerZA

I'm Enjoying Playing Ships At Sea On Steam Games

This is a pretty relaxing simulation game to play. No shooting, or being shot as soon as you respawn! It is pretty well much like Snowrunner, but i...

#technology #gaming #ships #simulation

French City of Lyon Kicks Out Microsoft “European countries have been growing increasingly wary of relying on Microsoft for critical government and public sector services. Concerns about data privacy, digital sovereignty, and potential governmental surveillance have led many to question the viability of depending on an American tech giant for sensitive infrastructure.” The point is, this is actually quite possible to do. Whether an organisation invests in its own people, or employs local companies to assist, it can be done. It is the marketing machine of Microsoft that convinces executives that Microsoft is so easy, that pays to certify installers and consultants, etc. The same can be done by governments, just like the UK government established their PRINCE project methodology, which all consultants and training companies were certified against. The same also goes for document formats. There is no reason to be stuck on .docx after so many governments committed to actually using ODF instead. Governments are not helpless, and can set standards to be complied with, and industry will conform if they want contacts. The big benefit for everyone involved is, anyone can freely download fully compliant ODF suites, and they do really work much the same as Microsoft Office does. I know this personally as I was part of a project to ready our own government to transition away from Microsoft in 2007. Yes, that never happened, but the reasons had nothing to do with the technology not working, or workers not being able to use Zimbra mail or LibreOffice. It was all politics and backroom manoeuvring around the IT staff. Such a change though does take guts and drive to implement, and the willingness of someone to stand up to the so-called “norm” of Microsoft. The world not only needs digital sovereignty, it also needs more competition and choices. Such choices do rest on having proper open standards for the formats of data being stored and processed. Vendor lock-in should be a major red flag for any government. See

It's FOSS

French City of Lyon Kicks Out Microsoft

Microsoft faces growing rejection in Europe whereas open source software sees growing adaption.

#technology #opensource #France #government

South Korea Brought High-Rise Fire Escape Solutions To The Masses “When a fire breaks out in a high-rise building, conventional wisdom is that stairwells are the only way out. Lifts are verboten in such scenarios, while sheer height typically prevents any other viable route of egress from tall modern buildings. If the stairs are impassable, or you can’t reach them, you’re in dire peril. In South Korea, though, there’s another option for escape. The answer involves strapping on a harness and descending down ropes hanging off the side of the building, just like in an action movie. It might sound terrifying, but these descending lifeline devices have become a common part of fire safety infrastructure across the country.” Interesting that the design works in both directions, so as one person descends, the other side is going up ready for the next person to descend. It is limited to 15 stories high, but it is real food for thought for skyscraper designers regarding better planning for evacuation of taller buildings. The fact is, things do go wrong, and what happens to the people up on 30 plus floors? Many skyscrapers also have sealed windows. It's a bit like planning for the ideal scenarios, and we hope nothing else ever happens. See

Hackaday

South Korea Brought High-Rise Fire Escape Solutions To The Masses

When a fire breaks out in a high-rise building, conventional wisdom is that stairwells are the only way out. Lifts are verboten in such scenarios, ...

#technology #escape #fire