General site updates, TODO list and discussion

[Lionel Debroux]

Unicorn: can your Kindle deal with https://tiplanet.org , and https://toutmonexam.fr , both of which have different cipher selection from https://omnimaga.org ?
ToutMonExam has always been accessible exclusively through HTTPS, as any brand-new site launched in 2015 onwards should be, and for testing purposes, I've recently disabled AES-128-based ciphers for it, as well as the lone remaining 3-DES-based cipher - only AES-256 is now allowed on TME. [EDIT: actually, this config will probably not last too long, because a number of browsers switch from AES-128 GCM to AES-256 CBC, which is no good.]

Doesn't Amazon provide upgrades for your Kindle model anymore ?

[Dream of Omnimaga]

It appears that this user has the same problem on Omnimaga: https://www.omnimaga.org/community-contests/code-golf-the-reboot-8/msg401865/#msg401865

Not sure why people would want to stick to old browsers, other than using an old device or OS (eg Android 2.2.2 or Windows XP), but I definitively recommend everyone to upgrade if they can (which isn't Unicorn's case, since he is stuck on an outdated Kindle).

Doesn't Amazon provide upgrades for your Kindle model anymore ?

I think it's one of the earliest models. It probably got discontinued long before smartphones came into existence.

[Unicorn]

Nop. its from 2008 or something. And I stil recieve updates, but they don't update the browser.:/ 
And I can connect to those two sites.

[Lionel Debroux]

And I stil recieve updates, but they don't update the browser.:/

How careless and user-unfriendly - heck, even criminal - behaviour of them. Nowadays, browsers are among the most complex pieces of user-facing code, contain many vulnerabilities, and should be updated quickly

And I can connect to those two sites.

Alright, thanks for the information
Based on the SSL Server Test reports for Omnimaga, TI-Planet and ToutMonExam, I think that what your Kindle's browser doesn't like, is the Elliptic Curve-based initial (Diffie-Hellman) key Exchange. Omnimaga (CloudFlare) only proposes ECDHE ciphers.
Now I can revert TME to the previous set of ciphers.

[Unicorn]

And I stil recieve updates, but they don't update the browser.:/

How careless and user-unfriendly - heck, even criminal - behaviour of them. Nowadays, browsers are among the most complex pieces of user-facing code, contain many vulnerabilities, and should be updated quickly

And I can connect to those two sites.

Alright, thanks for the information
Based on the SSL Server Test reports for Omnimaga, TI-Planet and ToutMonExam, I think that what your Kindle's browser doesn't like, is the Elliptic Curve-based initial (Diffie-Hellman) key Exchange. Omnimaga (CloudFlare) only proposes ECDHE ciphers.
Now I can revert TME to the previous set of ciphers.

Well, its not surprising that they don't update it that much. I mean, its a black and white kind;e, and I'm probably the only person who actually uses the brower.

[Dream of Omnimaga]

And I stil recieve updates, but they don't update the browser.:/

How careless and user-unfriendly - heck, even criminal - behaviour of them. Nowadays, browsers are among the most complex pieces of user-facing code, contain many vulnerabilities, and should be updated quickly

And I can connect to those two sites.

Alright, thanks for the information
Based on the SSL Server Test reports for Omnimaga, TI-Planet and ToutMonExam, I think that what your Kindle's browser doesn't like, is the Elliptic Curve-based initial (Diffie-Hellman) key Exchange. Omnimaga (CloudFlare) only proposes ECDHE ciphers.
Now I can revert TME to the previous set of ciphers.

To be fair, it seems common among most companies to stop providing updates for older devices, which sucks. For example, the Samsung i5510 phone is stuck with a browser dating back in its latest-supported OS (Android 2.2.2) and TI hasn't updated 68K calcs and the 83+ since 2006, despite still selling them in stores in North America.

At least Simplemachines still updates SMF 1.1 with emergency security updates from time to time, even though they said over one year ago they would no longer be doing so.


Nowadays, though, it's better to upgrade to newer devices to keep up with times, but with parents or money that is not always possible.

[Snektron]

Well, to be fair, if companies are held back by old technology we'll never get anywhere

[Unicorn]

Well, to be fair, if companies are held back by old technology we'll never get anywhere

Thats true. But for now, I'm fine with my kindle. When sites upgrade to that crazy HTTPS thing, I'll go for a new device.

[Dream of Omnimaga]

So I just discovered a bug with Topic cloning I think, which causes some old topics to become unlisted from board directories. I believe it might be the page count of each topic listing that is wrong, and the topics are still available, so it's not a big issue (not that necroposting for no reason would be recommended, anyway), but that's still something we might want to look at before the site gets too large (since even more topics will end up being hidden)


In a long-term future (eg in 4-5 years), since we mostly rely on recent posts, maybe we should switch to a tag-based forum system which has categories like we have now, but more like http://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/ , and allow people to check/uncheck categories to access many at once. It would be more modern in terms of social networking, although we would have to make sure that it's possible (and not messy) to have topics listed in multiple sections.


EDIT: Update: I fixed the Facebook share link at the top of the posts.

[Dream of Omnimaga]

Optimus Brave has been installed on the forums to improve page titles in topics (they did not even have the site name in them)

[Dream of Omnimaga]

Another site maintenance update: It looks like I might have managed to kill the Tapatalk pop-up on mobile (the blue screen that prevented you from going further until you clicked the X in the top-right). I am not 100% sure this was fixed, though, but normally, only the small ad at the top of pages should appear (even though I disabled it, but whatever)

EDIT: The banner is gone as well, but now WalrusIRC stopped working for some reasons. Not sure if related.

[Snektron]

Oh awesome! I hated that stupid ad

[Dream of Omnimaga]

Yeah same. It wasn't as bad in previous versions of Tapatalk, as we could disable the pop up, but they removed that ability in 2015 or so so now we have to edit the code (although that could cause issues if we ever update, but we plan to get rid of Tapatalk anyway if not enough traffic comes from there)

[Unicorn]

Oh awesome! I hated that stupid ad

Indeed! it was quite anoying!

[Yuki]

Yep, glad you've been able to get rid of it.