Change avatar on the forum

I would imagine that the rool forums should be able to changed in the setting to allow a user specified url for the image source. Then anyone that has some web space to put up there avatar (every RISC OS user on the net) should not have too much trouble.

That would be “no trouble” apart from any problem with a malicious spammer dropping a malware infected image into the location referenced?

I think we just need to get rid of them.

As I said earlier, my solution to this cross-site tracking problem is to edit my hosts file to redirect the www.gravatar.com request to a local TCP/IP server.

Having updated my server code, dealing with the HTTPS request is not a problem. I just silently drop the connection on port 443. Very quick with no siide effects noticed so far. (tested on Netsuft and Firefox)

Alternatively:-

I think we just need to get rid of them

has my vote.

I like the Avatar so I would vote against. No avatar = no tracking. And for me personally I don’t care about this part of tracking. Read carefully for this part. If the statement is the avatar would be stored on this forum that would be a better idea.

That might be slowing things down for you.

I think that that using my local server actually speeds things up.

I think that that using my local server actually speeds things up.

If there’s a server to respond then it’s quite likely the response from that is swift, it does rather depend on what the browser does about the non-existence of the PHP script the page code is trying to run.

We could really do with a simple local ‘server’ instance to run on RO – somewhere to dump the innumerable items of ‘tat’ that are requests embedded in web pages. The gravater stuff under discussion here is really the very, very tip of the iceberg.

No avatar = no tracking

In making that statement, you’re considering only the linking of a given avatar with the person who uses it, which effectively tells gravatar this person uses this forum, that one, this other one… and so on.

In reality, however, gravatar.com is technically capable of tracking all users of forums that link to it to supply avatars.

I’ve no idea if they do or not¹, but they can.

¹ My default settings in this browser largely mitigate against that sort of thing – though sadly can’t eliminate it entirely.

¹ Now implemented

My view is Why else would they do free Avatars?

Inded.

As I said above routing https requests to www.gravatar.com to a TCP/IP server on my network which quietly drops the connection eliminates it for me. (and lots of other tracking instances as well)

Yes, but that requires updating it each time a new one comes along. I have to balance out my general dislike of tracking etc with my general laziness. :)

the only reasonable action is to prevent the use of avatars completely on the forum.

Why, because somebody might sneak in a malicious image? That’s fairly easily fixed. Just set up a Pi somewhere that will accept “whatever” (GIF, JPEG, PNG…) and automatically convert it to a PNG for use on the site/forum. This only needs to b a one-off conversion, so isn’t going to be bandwidth heavy.
The conversion? Via a sprite. With some code running on RISC OS. Thus, the image provided doesn’t make it to the end-user.

I like the Avatar

Just ’cos you have a cool one. ;-)

so I would vote against.

Me too. I’m a visual person, so I use the avatars to know who is writing in preference to reading the name.

No avatar = no tracking.

No avatar means that one thing isn’t tracking you. Everything else is…

only using Avatars that it had a local copy of, like most forum software I have directly interacted with the host side of does.

The problem with that is that caching local copies complicates the ability of the user to change their avatar.

The way the system works (brief look) is that people’s login email addresses are condensed down to some sort of unique code. This code is fired to gravatar for everybody. If the code matches a known registered address, then an icon is sent back. If it doesn’t, a generic logo is returned. I think it’s supposed to be a sideways ‘G’, but to me it looks a lot like the “power” button logo.

I’ve no idea if they do or not, but they can.

It’s an American outfit (owned by WordPress these days, I think?), so I think the best guess is to assume if they can then they are until it’s proven otherwise.

Pretty much everything is trying to track you in some manner ¹ (hell, UBlock picks up my bank’s website ² trying to bounce requests off xibi or something (some analytical outfit)). There must be so much bull floating around.

¹ My IPcam’s app (which is set to not use data in the background?!) appears to fire requests to China (183.232.98.178 port 14000 and 8080) every so often while the app is supposedly sleeping. Amusingly, neither port at that address is responding. Maybe too much rubbish was received? But, then, these were the twats that used a hard-coded password for associating “the current IP address” with a camera ID. It would have taken about 20 lines of BASIC to iterate through all of the IDs (many, two letters and three numbers, or maybe the other way around?) to hijack ’em all.

² Just fired up the app with NoRootFirewall running. A connection to 93.20.46.204 which translates to be api.cmb.fr so this makes sense.
There’s also a request to ham02s14-in-f195.1e100.net. The bit at the end is the giveaway. 1E¹⁰⁰ is a googol, a really big number. So this is a request to Google. Uh… why?

Amusingly, neither port at that address is responding

<paranoid> Neither port at that address is responding at the moment. </paranoid>

The gitlab-server has it’s own avatars. I guess it isn’t technically possible, but it would be neat if they could be used in the forum as well.

There’s also a request to ham02s14-in-f195.1e100.net. The bit at the end is the giveaway. 1E100 is a googol, a really big number. So this is a request to Google. Uh… why?

Google Analytics in all likelihood.

From the google network:

1e100.net is a Google-owned domain name used to identify the servers in our network.

From the google network:

1e100.net is a Google-owned domain name used to identify the servers in our network.

We know, the question Rick posed was why is his banks web site including code that queries a Google server?

My assumption is that part of it is Google analytics on their endless endeavour to catalogue all of our activity and sell the data to pretty much anyone with the money. A lot of this is done by offering free code to link in¹ so the basic web page can include several shovelfuls of extra “features” with no real effort by the “web designer”² at the expense of inserted code to tag you and your activity.

The Pi-hole server is not just about limiting malware exposure, it also speeds up general access by trimming out access attempts to the tracker and data mining sites, but you’re interested in blocking the Gravatar stuff, so you know that already.

¹ That’s link in as opposed to copy and paste in so your connection to your bank actually requires that your browser also call for a code snippet from Google.

Ha! Copy and paste merchants with little talent

“little” – that much? That’s a bit of an overestimate if you ask me…

You caught me in a relaxed mood. :)
Now round lunchtime¹ I was a bit stretched² and slightly irritable after.

Bloat code
Some sites I’ve seen recently have you download over 40MB just to put a login panel in the middle of an otherwise blank area of screen. Dig a little, and they are only using one function of a large file, but they are too idle, or dim, to pull out that one item.

¹ Didn’t have any, just another pot of coffee

Didn’t have any, just another pot of coffee

Sometimes when I was lots younger and doing nerdy stuff, my five a day would basically be cups of tea.
Eat!? Do I look like I have time to eat!?

So glad I left that life behind. Half the pay¹ and none of the stress, seems a good trade-off to me.

to a contractor whose experience is in MS Mail

Hahaha! I got smokin’ hot skillz yo, I can read email!
Prolly not what you meant, but 😂😂😂😂😂.

¹ I’d probably be on a pretty sweet salary by now, if I hadn’t thrown myself off a radio tower. God I hated that job. Being a geek is strictly hobby, strictly on my own terms. Nothing else. So no, I don’t begrudge what little I’m paid now. There’s not a lot of stress in what I do. I just turn up, do stuff, go home, and the part between 5pm and 9am? My time, not time I think about anything to do with work. 🙂

Does any body have an better ideas?

Move the forum to something more standard that supports them natively and doesn’t use Textile…phpBB?

Yes…yes…I know it doesn’t work that well on Netsurf, but there are other browsers.

I would love that I can access this website with netsurf but if that is impossible well I can use my smartphone ;-)

This website already works very well with Netsurf.

This website already works very well with Netsurf.

Is there a version that handles the footnotes properly yet?
And there was some issue with the widths relating to the use of scrollbars in the
< code > sections I think, so you should probably delete the words “very well” just at the moment. Maybe later.

The footnotes look OK to me.

Wide >pre> snippets can look a bit strange sometimes, but are usually quite readable ---------------------------------------            

It is just a case of where the scroll bars are shown.

You get them with Firefox as well – but in a different place.

Neither is perfect.

The footnotes look OK to me.

Do they work properly? Skip down to footnote and back?