Announcing new tools, forums, and features - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/2256-a-whole-new-github-universe-announcing-new-tools-forums-and-features <comment> old-gregg This is the example of how hard it can be for companies, especially successful companies, to alter their course even slightly.

Github success was about making code repositories pretty and social. But this is no longer enough to keep evolving as a company of their size. Yet the internal product DNA still revolves around repos, so as a result, issues, wikis and now Projects (!) live under a single repository.

This is backward.

A project is a way to group resources to achieve a predefined goal. Those resources include multiple people, multiple issues and _multiple repositories_. Sticking a project under a repository makes no sense.

In fact, a code repository in most organizations is a fairly small and an insignificant asset, just another way to organize code, i.e. function -> module -> directory -> repository, etc. It's quite awkward to think of what your company is doing in terms of repositories, so anything Github adds to repos feels out of place by default.

Another example of repository-centric thinking is the homepage of [https://github.com](https://github.com) itself when a user is logged in. It's the most important page of all, yet nothing on it has any relevance to me: just a list of people I like starring random repos. Same thing for the organization home page, just a list of repos, again.

The Project idea is great. It had the potential to solve all of these issues by giving me a tool to organize digital assets in a way that's important to me. But sticking it under a repository killed it.

[EDIT] It's easy to be me and be posting a comment like this, telling successful people what to do. But it's enormously hard to have a large team of PMs, developers and designers, all of whom are smart and ambitious individuals, to actually do something that falls outside of the settled way of doing things. Kudos to Github founders and employees for getting it this far and congratulations on dealing with big company problems ;)

<comment><USER3> I agree that putting projects under repositories looks counterintuitive. In BitBucket you have multiple repositories under one project [https://confluence.atlassian.com/bitbucket/projects-79249795...](https://confluence.atlassian.com/bitbucket/projects-792497956.html)

We at GitLab are trying to keep it simple by having only one repository, one wiki, one issue tracker, one CD pipeline, and one set of milestones per project. Projects always below to a group. We aggregate on the group level, for example issues [https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab- org/issues](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/issues), merge requests [https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab- org/merge_requests](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/merge_requests) and milestones [https://docs.gitlab.com/ce/workflow/milestones.html#groups-a...](https://docs.gitlab.com/ce/workflow/milestones.html#groups- and-milestones)

There are several things we're still considering to solve this problem better, comments are very welcome:

1\. Multi project pipelines [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab- ce/issues/17069](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/17069)

2\. Group level issue boards [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab- ee/issues/928](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/928)

3\. Nested groups [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab- ce/issues/2772](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/2772)

<comment><USER4> Meta-comment: As a founder and engineer, I used to give a lot of shit to Social Media as a growth channel.

GitLab staff are "on point" by commenting on anything relevant to their industry (code creation/management) where their target customers are (HN).

To other founders, this is what good marketing looks like.

<comment><USER3> Thanks Chris. It is a tricky balance not being too noisy (I understand the sentiment of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12502468](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12502468) ) but I tried to add to the conversation by by sharing our thoughts about the project <=> repo dilemma.

<comment><USER5> I thought HN frowned on metacomments, and here it goes, talking about GitLab again, in a Github topic...

<comment><USER6> I'm in no way affiliated with gitlab, but I do like the product.

But the facts are such:

1) GitLab is a YCombinator incubated company.

2) GitLab and GitHub are direct competitors

3) It's almost always relevant to the discussion, in this case; "How could it be done differently, how /has/ it been done differently"

In this case I think it's fair to bring up the direct comparison of github and gitlab. The only thing I would say could improve the situation was having github representation on here too.

<comment><USER7> I enjoy threads like these; this is how _healthy competition_ looks like. GitLab peoples' comments are relevant, and their discuss technical issues and merits of _their_ solution, instead of comparing to GitHub ("we're better than the competitor!").

If this is how all marketing would always look like, I wouldn't hate it like I now do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a rough summary of what all I read in the blog post:

1\. projects. replaces trello, waffle.io, zenhub and many other similar services.

2\. code reviews allow approval/request changes as sunny's screenshot shows

3\. reviews can be made mandatory.

4\. github platform integrations is getting a roadmap

5\. a graphql api to query their database

6\. enforce 2fa in organizations (much love for this one)

7\. summarized timeline for your contibutions

Just a few days back, at the GitLab release, I'd noticed a lot of complains about gitlab releasing useful and impactful features and github being slow on releases. Moreover, now with a public roadmap (even if it is just for platforms), it is a great start.

I'm really liking this change in pace.

mods: Can we make this the canonical discussion for this topic? Otherwise, a lot of branching will happen

<comment><USER9> I agree with you that the pick up in pace of Github's lacking features has been phenomenal, and I don't really quite understand all the love of GitLab except rooting for the underdog. Github is the clear industry leader, has been since essentially it's creation. It is very fast and feature-filled. It is the central location for the vast majority of code I use and see. Since the open letter to Github with the complaints of feature requests, they've really stepped up their game and made competitors really non-starters from my point of view.

<comment><USER10> > I don't really quite understand all the love of GitLab

\- ___Open Source_ __

\- Free private repos

\- Free self-host (edit to add "Free")

\- Everything in one spot (repos, ci, review, coding environment, etc...)

<comment><USER9> It's only kind of open source, and only partly. They call it open core, so saying open source outright is a bit misleading.

The review feature is very new in GL, and that plus all of the things you are mentioning within "everything in one spot" is available in this update (except maybe the coding env, not sure what that means anyway), if you've read the announcement. Github also has self hosting.

<comment><USER11> Where can I find a link about self hosted Github? Just curious to read about it.

<comment><USER12> It's github enterprise: [https://enterprise.github.com/features#pricing](https://enterprise.github.com/features#pricing)

<comment><USER11> Thanks. I was unaware this existed. Looks like it was launched in 2011[1]. Somehow I thought that with their (presumably, from what little I've gathered over the years) complex infrastructure setup this would be hard or impossible. I wonder if they have an Enterprise team devoted to keeping up with a SaaS mainline and how much work they have to do, or if they made/make some decisions that make this (Enterprise) a fairly self-contained "it just works" sort of thing.

[1] [https://github.com/blog/978-introducing-github- enterprise](https://github.com/blog/978-introducing-github-enterprise)

<comment><USER13> Hi there - GitHub Enterprise definitely has a devoted team focused on building features tailored to the needs of customers requiring/requesting an on-premise solution, as well as making it entirely self-contained. We typically release a new version of GitHub Enterprise on a quarterly basis - you can see the latest additions we shipped with GitHub Enterprise 2.7 here: [https://enterprise.github.com/releases/2.7.0/notes](https://enterprise.github.com/releases/2.7.0/notes)

We have companies scaling their GitHub Enterprise instance up to 25,000 users, and we also have a dedicated Enterprise Support team available 24/5 to resolve any technical issues.

<comment><USER11> Thanks for the answer straight from the horse's mouth! I'd often heard about companies storing their code on GH and didn't understand how they could get away with using a SaaS app available on a public cloud; now I know, they can just run a self-hosted version on their own private network.

I am not your target market, FWIW, but just a curious developer.

<comment><USER13> No worries - glad to provide the additional details!

We also recognize that having a SaaS solution like GitHub Organizations meets the needs of many companies (over 75,000 at last count), and our announcement of 2FA enhancements today is an indication of our desire to continue that approach.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Some nice improvements here. It appears, though, that Projects suffer from the same problem we've had with Issues: they are limited to one repo.

I know there are some tools to manage Issues across repos, but for the most part, the tools seem to assume you work on only one repo, or that milestones only affect a single repo.

I would love to see projects/milestones become more capable when dealing with cross-repo issues.

<comment><USER15> This has been why we don't use github's issues, wikis, and why we won't use their projects. For example if the overall product has a web site repo, server repo, iOS repo and an Android repo then they need to be used as a coherent whole. An issue might be reported against iOS but the cause is in the server, so the ticket would need to be moved. Rinse and repeat for all the other interactions of piece, and that collaborators often don't know (and shouldn't need to) precisely what issues, wikis etc correspond to which repo.

The now defunct Google Code had a very good solution for this. You could create additional "sub" repositories alongside the "main" one. Github already does that for the wiki, but doesn't generalise it to allowing additional ones. I'm somewhat convinced this is because github has the whole "charge by the repository" model, which is at odds for being useful for projects that require multiple git level repos.

<comment><USER16> I would put all projects under one repo as orphan branches. With some branch- naming conventions you can easily separate those.

<comment><USER17> Imagine you just hired a new web developer, and added him to this repo. His first local repo clone will include 3 entire projects for iOS, Android, and backend server, that he has no use for, or should even have permissions to access in the first place.

This sounds like a security nightmare, that also significantly impacts local update times and makes for a huge repo.

<comment><USER18> So companies like Fb (with their gazillions of files) can afford a single repo and you hiring a new developer cannot?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'll be curious to see if they've made API granularity more sane.

We haven't been able to use any third party tools because our security people don't feel great about giving third parties write access to everything (including our source) for tools that don't need it. In the past, GitHub hasn't differentiated write access to issues (which many tools need) and write access to the source itself (which basically nothing should need).

<comment><USER20> Plus a million - I'm not sure how this still isn't a feature.

Considering all of the PCI-DSS / HIPAA / SOX / etc. audit points around change control (even ignoring corporate versions of the same) it's practically impossible to add external services to GH and have them be useful while still meeting compliance. Change control is required, but that also implies control of change control. As-is any service could delete all of your content, whether intentionally or inadvertently, or even worse could corrupt or otherwise alter your history.

It may be detectable and recoverable because git, but it would be infinitely easier to have code and PR be r--rw-.

EDIT: This is now a thing, according to @bhuga below. Also, GH is now publishing a roadmap for what's coming down the pipe, so we're not in the dark as to when these critically-important-why-isnt-it-out-yet features are being worked on. [https://developer.github.com/early-access/platform- roadmap/](https://developer.github.com/early-access/platform-roadmap/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm not sure if the name "project" is a good choice here.

For one, GitHub still has some pages that refer to the idea of creating projects on GitHub, except those aren't referring to these new kinds of "projects" (they actually are referring to new repositories or new accounts or something).

And, there are literally over a million repositories that have the name Project or Project somewhere in their name[1] so you can now create projects within things that are already called Projects (except the "projects" act more like issues, or tasks, or _something_ ).

Naming is important, there's a reason why engineers devote so much time to it.

[1] [https://github.com/search?p=1&q=project&type=Repositories&ut...](https://github.com/search?p=1&q=project&type=Repositories&utf8=%E2%9C%93)

<comment><USER22> I agree, Projects is a poor choice, in my opinion.

Some alternatives that randomly come to mind: "Boards", "Plan", "Plans", "Tasks".

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Impressive. I have to think that this is all competition fostered by Gitlab - all those features were present in Gitlab. Competition at work :)

<comment><USER24> I have been a huge pusher for GitLab, and my basic reasoning was that GitHub isn't open sourced like GitLab. GitHub was going awfully slow and no communication to its customers in new features. Looks like GitLab lit a fire underneath them. I wonder which one is "better". Nevertheless, at least there is competition now. SCM is the biggest component in any coding practices, I'm that it is finally getting attention.

<comment><USER25> Hopefully the community forum will help GitHub to keep in touch with the community!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There's some nice stuff here -- probably some of it that I'll use -- but most of this is targeted at organisations (and in particular, managers and administrators) rather than individual developers.

Understandable -- it's clearly companies that are paying the bills these days -- but a little disappointing given the extent to which GitHub got big by attracting lone hackers and little open source projects.

If somebody else manages to claim the small-scale end if the market it could eventually spell trouble for GitHub.

<comment><USER27> This isn't a random shift in direction for github... in the end it will make the platform so complex and irrelevant for open source teams that they will go elsewhere. I wrote an analysis of this shift some time back: [http://hintjens.com/blog:111](http://hintjens.com/blog:111)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The review stuff is semi similar to what I requested GitLab do and I'm surprised it's taken so long for anyone to really do it. It's a great workflow. I'm still not convinced about keeping all of your project's management in the version control system (I mean I prefer issues in there but the rest seems...wrong to me for whatever biased reason I have).

Overall looks good! When does Enterprise get these features? :)

<comment><USER13> We're glad you like it! This is the first of many Code Review enhancements we'll be providing, so stay tuned.

These features will be coming to GitHub Enterprise soon - we always aim to get new features onto the Enterprise platform on the next major release (which occurs every 3 months on average).

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> My team and I played around with Projects for a little bit and these are things that were blockers / annoyances for us from moving away from trello. I'm posting because I know some GH people are reading these comments.

\- Mobile support: Trello mobile app is great, projects web doesn't even resize for mobile.

\- Slack support: Card Created notifications

\- Easier "card" preview: Projects requires you to go to a new page to view a card

\- Projects (1): This little "1" will always be 1. At least with PRs and Issues it means something (pending tasks, etc).

\- Limited to one repo

I also found it funny that they call it "notes" as in "add note" "delete note" etc, but there is a menu item on each card that says "Copy Card URL". Maybe they renamed from "cards" to "notes" mid development? :)

</comment><comment><USER30> I'd really like it if the Pull Requests page would denote which PRs I've already approved. That is one thing I really liked from Bitbucket, it makes it easy to skip over what I've already approved. It would become slightly more complex though, because then you'd probably want to see something for PRs you've approved but had subsequent changes on.

<comment><USER13> Great feedback point here - I've passed it along to our Engineering team.

<comment><USER30> Thank you! Can I make one more request? I'd love to be able to see merge conflicts from the diff page (also like BB does).

Knowing the conflict is just db/schema version instead of something more problematic-- that is especially handy when used in conjunction with various target branches.

i.e. I know <another-feature> branch is about to be merged before right before <my-branch> gets merged. Then, I can know what I'm going to have to fix quickly without having to go back to terminal, fetch <another-feature>, merge <my-branch>, just to find the conflicts. Yes, I have to do that with master after it's merged anyways, but I find it great to see quickly and at a glance beforehand.

<comment><USER13> Certainly - thanks for that! I've included it here.

We're aiming to monitor this board as much as possible, but if there other feature asks that come up, feel free to connect with our Support team - they're also available to take your feature asks and report them to our Engineering team.

<comment><USER30> A couple days ago I noticed that the status box on the PR page now includes a list of conflicted files. Not sure if that was in any way related to my request here, but wanted to thank you if it was. That is very helpful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Was really hoping "forums" would mean users could add dedicated discussion boards to repositories.

</comment><comment><USER32> If anyone from Github reads this, a) this looks great, b) add project templates please, so we don't have to recreate the same columns every time. Thanks. <3

<comment><USER33> Great idea. Thanks!

<comment><USER32> While I have your attention. A few thoughts on code reviews. It's be nice if 1) approvals somehow show up on the pull requests index page, 2) create a notification within GH, 3) send an email. Right now you have to go to the PR page itself to see approvals.

Edit: I saw an approval email notification on one PR, but not another.

Thanks!

<comment><USER29> +1 for seeing approvals visually on the pull request index page. I currently use a "Reviewed" label with my team, and unfortunately we still have to even with this feature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm actually really interested in the tech stack they used to make these new features. Specifically Projects. No latest and greatest framework or anything of that caliber. Just plain PJAX which is what everything else they have done uses. That's pretty cool to me. Looks like a pretty strong engineering culture of using stuff that works, instead of the shiniest object at the moment in time.

</comment><comment><USER35> The inconsistent and non-sensical font and white space on the new profile pages is giving me an indescribable form of anxiety. If anybody out from the GH design team is out there, please put it back to how it was. :(.

Example: [https://github.com/Miserlou](https://github.com/Miserlou)

10 font sizes is too many for any one page.

<comment><USER36> Just report it: [https://github.com/contact](https://github.com/contact)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Batch review has been my #1 most desired feature for Github for many years now. This is great!

<comment><USER38> Thanks! It has been on our list for a long time as well, excited to get it shipped.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Finally, Github getting some Love! Can't wait to switch to Projects and wave Goodbye Jira. I'm a happy dev today.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, when GitLab announced Kanban I tried to migrate, but it just wasn't as great as GitHub, this is the nail in my foot that keeps me at GitHub.

<comment><USER3> What can we improve in GitLab that would have convinced you to stay?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey styse! You guys are doing great, don't get me wrong, every time I try you guys out, leaps and bounds. My two biggest things right now are CI docs are very very sparse and hard to figure out as they are not similar to typical CI systems, at least the ones I used (primarily Travis). And the design is very unusual, it's hard to navigate around. For example on GitHub I can click my profile and boom, all repositories right there, on gitlab, i got to go through projects, groups and all this other stuff, it's just not straight forward.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> A minor nit: the commit graph full of green squares should not be encouraged. I don't think that kind of behavior is healthy.

</comment><comment><USER41> Another Discourse forum. I was sceptical that the Discourse style of forum would become popular. Too complex and heavy, specially for mobile. I must admit that it's looking very good and is very usable.

</comment><comment><USER42> If anyone from GitHub reads this, it would be great if you could use Task Lists [1] within Notes, e.g.

        Note Title.

        - [ ] Some subtask.
        - [x] Another subtask.

You could then group subtasks within a single note and tick them off as you go without having to edit the note every time. Cheers and thank you for the fantastic new features!

[1] [https://github.com/blog/1375-task-lists-in-gfm-issues- pulls-...](https://github.com/blog/1375-task-lists-in-gfm-issues-pulls- comments)

<comment><USER13> Reading, and passing that feedback along to our Engineering team. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Batched review and pending state have both been a long time coming.

Most of the times when I do a review it's not a single comment and right now the workflow is to let the team know on Slack that I am reviewing this.

From the Gif it's not 100% clear what the pending state does but I would want something like blocking the PR until every team member that started reviewing will "release" the PR. I also see the negative side of this of course but I think the positive outweighs the negatives.

<comment><USER44> You can block merges until there's an "approved" code review in the Protected Branches setting. I don't think it has anything like "everyone who reviewed must approve" though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> If anybody from GitHub is here, I have a feedback on the new Reviews feature.

When the Review approval is missing or required, please make it clear in the "Pull Requests" list-view by updating the color of the little dot and it's popup description.

Right now the colored dot and its description are only including "Checks" but not "Reviews". It would be nice to have a clear indicator of which Pull Requests are missing a review just by looking at the list.

</comment><comment><USER46> Can't seem to find free private repos and unlimited collaborators ?

But good to see GitHub responding - would be keen to hear from bitbucket which I personally use for private repos.

<comment><USER47> Here is a list of features we shipped in the last 12 months: [https://blog.bitbucket.org/2016/09/07/bitbucket- cloud-5-mill...](https://blog.bitbucket.org/2016/09/07/bitbucket- cloud-5-million-developers-900000-teams/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> The improvements to code reviews are really exciting. Having comments submit all at once instead of one at a time is a great UX change, I've definitely gotten sidetracked mid-review because somebody started responding to my initial comments when I'm neck deep. Comment threading is super useful for discussion-heavy comments like code review, and an in-UI approve/request changes is great.

<comment><USER13> That's awesome to hear - we're glad you like those changes! As you dive into it further, let us know how it works for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Code reviews currently do not seem to come through on the webhooks at all.

Our in-house automation suites depend on it, so this is a big _do not use_ for us.

I really wish their APIs weren't second class citizens. It takes weeks or months for new features to show up in the API - if at all. I wish there was 1-1 parity with the API.

<comment><USER38> We definitely have plans to get full support into the API around pull request reviews.

Given how much iteration we do after an initial ship like this, especially one with as much feedback as code review, we prefer shipping the API after things have solidified and settled down after the wide release.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I sent this to support, but the "Files changed" tab in Pull Requests now has an announcement "We've made some change to reviewing code"

The "Learn more" button on that banner is a broken link…

(It's a good thing this HN post later directed me to the blog post, as now I've learned from that.)

<comment><USER13> Sorry about that! Is the link working now?

<comment><USER50> Looks like it is! (The URL that was broken now has content; the banner has since vanished for me.)

<comment><USER13> Excellent. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> How about diffs on pull request? The biggest gripe I have with github is the inability to compare my feature branch with the branch I'm merging too. The diff you see is comparing the feature branch with the "base" branch which would be stale when working on a dev team.

<comment><USER13> I want to make sure I capture your feedback correctly, so let me know if this doesn't help: we recently released the ability to change your base branch on a PR. [https://github.com/blog/2224-change-the-base-branch-of-a- pul...](https://github.com/blog/2224-change-the-base-branch-of-a-pull-request)

Let me know if that helps!

<comment><USER51> Here's an example. It's meant to illustrate 2 developers working on a feature branch based on master and one pulls their code in before the other.

[https://github.com/jparmstrong/gittest/pull/3/files](https://github.com/jparmstrong/gittest/pull/3/files)

\- Two feature branches were created based on master at the same time.

\- Branch1: committed a change to readme and it's pulled into master via PR.

\- Branch2: committed a change to readme, raised a pull request (PR#3), and the diff doesn't show the line that was added with the branch1 pull request.

In this example, the PR is telling me there's a conflict and I need to merge master with the PR branch (this is good). What it doesn't tell me is where the conflict is.

Solution, merge the base branch into the interim PR branch. The result will show you the conflict and properly represents what would happen if this PR is accepted. (Bitbucket does this)

Thanks for following up.

gist of merge master example output: [https://gist.github.com/jparmstrong/07cab1a566c5c1495d7c8e07...](https://gist.github.com/jparmstrong/07cab1a566c5c1495d7c8e075dd65962)

<comment><USER13> Got it - very helpful. Thanks for clarifying! I've copied this verbatim and sent across to our Platform team.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I think their recent change to per user pricing plays into this nicely. These features look really cool, but I can see it being costly to an organization when you have to give managers, project managers, etc. access to Github just so they can manage issues.

</comment><comment><USER53> Gotta love a little competition.

<comment><USER54> I know, right. GitHub hasn't moved in years, until they felt Atlassian and GitLab starting to close in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> This product video for GitHub Projects features a logo that's exactly like Trello's. Cold. [https://youtu.be/NoBI4_9EuUw](https://youtu.be/NoBI4_9EuUw)

<comment><USER56> That's the symbol they're using for Projects everywhere. If you look at a repo, it's there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Missed opportunity to call the platform forum the "GitHub PlatForum."

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure "missed opportunity" is the right name for that :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Reviews are very exciting, but seem to be unable to fit the following use case:

I want to setup a repo such that a subset of collaborators (or organization members) can merge reviewed PRs to protected branches. I want the rest of the users to be able to create new branches and submit PRs from them, but _not_ to be able to push to protected branches. They should _only_ be able to land code in protected branches via reviewed PRs (via the merge button).

Is there a way to achieve this now that I'm missing? Gitlab's more granular user roles + permissions allow this.

<comment><USER59> [https://github.com/blog/2137-protected-branches- improvements](https://github.com/blog/2137-protected-branches-improvements)

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I've just used the new review mode to do a bigger (still medium) sized review [0], and it was quite nice.

It's strange that I can edit any of the inline comments, but not the actual review body itself. What if I made a typo there?

[0] [https://github.com/google/go- github/pull/427#pullrequestrevi...](https://github.com/google/go- github/pull/427#pullrequestreview-104460)

</comment><comment><USER61> Hmm.. So was there a workflow where I could say "I'd like for this not to be pushed until I've approved it", even if the patch is assigned to be reviewed by someone else? Of course, I could just comment with that on the issue, but it would be nicer if the issue would pop up somehow after the other reviewer has reviewed it, and it would be obvious to everyone that it's waiting for my approval.

</comment><comment><USER62> What I really wonder right now: When reviewing my own PR on my own repo, I cannot select that the things I proposed must be resolved before the PR can be merged - why is that? Am I not allowed to keep myself from merging things I considered changeworthy or what?

</comment><comment><USER63> GitHub is playing catch-up with GitLab. Interesting.

</comment><comment><USER64> I just hope Github doesn't pivot in a direction that makes them no longer a safe place to archive open source code. We've had two failures already - Google Code (shut down) and Sourceforge (started putting adware on the executables of others.)

Github, please don't blow it.

</comment><comment><USER65> Can we import a Trello project with all it's lists/cards seamlessly into a github repos `project`?

<comment><USER66> Not even close. Trello has way more features for cards. Project notes are really just a blob of text (Markdown?) and that's it. No title, description, checklists, attachments, or comments. One can imagine them coming though and with the Projects API on the roadmap you would then be able to do an import.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Definitely cool, but weren't you always able to comment inline on a PR?

<comment><USER68> The GIF shows "Start Review" button and "Finish your review" buttons (and a "Pending" flag), which makes me think this is more geared to the complaints that every comment sent an individual email instead of being batched when the reviewer was ready to send them out.

Edit: Indeed, from the github blog post - "You can also leave a review summary and delete, edit, or bundle comments before you submit them."

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Maybe I can finally get my boss to switch off of Unfuddle. Although moving 10 years of history out of a couple dozen SVN repos into git would likely be lots of fun...

</comment><comment><USER70> Now I wonder how long before some of these features such as mandatory reviews will make it into Github Enterprise?

<comment><USER13> The updated Code Review features will be coming to GitHub Enterprise soon - <USER2> always aim to get new features onto the Enterprise platform on the next major release (which occurs every 3 months on average).

<comment><USER70> Thanks, our team was literally lamenting about lacking specific reviewers when migrating from phabricator to github enterprise last week. Looking forward to it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Oh how I want the ability to group repos into projects on GitHub. Thought this was it. It's not.

</comment><comment><USER72> Is this the death of Trello?

<comment><USER73> I'd switch instantly if:

1\. There was a faster and more contextual way to edit issues on a project.

2\. There was a way to set up an opinionated workflow where e.g. opening a PR against an issue moves the issue to "Review"; closing said PR moves issue to "Done" and closes it; closing an issue directly moves it to "Done" and vice versa. Without this, there's way too much interaction required for even GitHub's own preferred workflow.

3\. Automatic bidirectional linking between issue/PR on the project board. (Honestly haven't had a chance to see if it does this, but will on the next PR I open.)

4\. Automatically pre-fill a backlog with existing issues.

5\. A project could span multiple repositories (e.g. for tracking user stories which might be addressed in an API or frontend repo, or both). We also track non-dev work on our Trello board, and a project per repo doesn't support this.

6\. Filtering.

Edit... Also nice to have: ability to reference a checklist item in a link from PR to issue, check it on merge, and so on.

<comment><USER74> Hi - Codetree [1] does a lot of what you're asking for (specifically 3, 5, 6) and I love the other stuff you mention, we've been thinking hard on a couple of them. Would love to quickly chat about your workflow just to learn, not to sell, if you can spare the 15 mins. If you're interested shoot me an email at email@example.com.

[1] [https://codetree.com](https://codetree.com)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> Wonder how services like Waffle will react to this

<comment><USER76> [http://blog.waffle.io/say-hello-to-wafflebot/](http://blog.waffle.io/say- hello-to-wafflebot/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> anyone else consider this too little too late?

</comment><comment><USER78> I predict, one day github will host a school.

</comment><comment><USER68> 1st party link: [https://github.com/blog/2256-a-whole-new-github-universe- ann...](https://github.com/blog/2256-a-whole-new-github-universe-announcing- new-tools-forums-and-features)

<comment><AUTHOR> Can we get this updated to this? defunkt didn't post this blog post before TechCrunch talked about it. I'd much rather had linked to it.

<comment><USER79> OK, we've updated the link from [https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/14/github- gets-built-in-proje...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/14/github-gets-built- in-project-management-tools-and-support-for-reviews/).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I haven't said it lately, but the team behind this community is great. Quickly becoming my favorite forum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> Link goes right to 404 - Thats one heck of a new feature.

<comment><USER76> Heh, 404s if you aren't logged in to GitHub

<comment><USER80> Nope. I was logged in. Guessing it was something else.

I like how I got downvoted for providing information...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> And still no HTTPS for github pages with custom domains...

<comment><USER82> You can use Cloudflare for that. (That's what I do on [https://doma.io](https://doma.io))</comment></comment>


Upgrading Instant Rails 2.3 to 3.2 for Windows - <AUTHOR> http://www.ajibanda.com/2012/06/upgrading-instant-rails-23-to-32.html#.T9mHrh8hHnI.hackernews <comment><USER2> Just wanted to read this piece, but killed the tab, after waiting 10 seconds for syntaxhighlighter.google... to answer. Site didn't show anything but the background.

So sorry, but maybe you should just load the script locally - or from another CDN.</comment>


The 0x10 Best Advanced Questions for C Programmers - <AUTHOR> http://stevenkobes.com/ctest.html <comment><USER2> Answer to Q3 is incorrect. It should be d:

\- the function does not handle overflow (say x=1024, n=1024 in most if not all current C compilers)

\- worse, the function does not handle the case n<0.

The "n<0 => function returns 1" case led me to rule out answers a, b, and c.</comment>


Our Adsense account was abruptly shut down - <AUTHOR> http://innovationmedian.blogspot.com/2012/09/google-does-not-want-newspapers-to-make.html

<comment><USER2> From the post:

 _"We migrated all of our videos from the expensive Brightcove platform in August and went live on YouTube in August and on our site with YouTube on August 22, using the embedded player."_

I am wondering if anyone has yet connected "expensive" vs "cheap" to "Has customer support" vs "Has no support" ?

It isn't exactly a zero sum game. Youtube seems to work really well for indie publishers who put up cat videos and large partners with deep pockets like Vevo and the music labels, and for people in the middle, it seems to be hit or miss. And if you have issues, it is all miss.

</comment><comment><USER3> That blog makes the same mistake that many blogs makes and has no links to the product, nor to whatever the hell it is their talking about.

(<https://www.youtube.com/user/pe?feature=watch>)

I'm guessing that's the channel.

Their website (<http://www.pe.com/>)

The subscription link on the website, which takes you to this page: (<http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=pe>)

There are 5 videos with viewership over 5,000. The rest? Most have less than 500 views.

The innovationmedian blog links to a few sites that make my neck itchy, in that "I'm sure these people are doing something unsavoury with online ads or reviews but I have no idea what it is". I know I'm over critical of advertising stuff.

<comment><USER4> This personal blog post is referring to one of the top 100 local newspapers in the country. You may not like advertising, but this paper is 130 years old and has won a Pulitzer prize. It's the paper of record for the Riverside community.

<comment><USER3> Why isn't it linked anywhere?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> it's like the guy at the newspaper cannot read. google sent him a link to a list of issues, and he doesn't address them at all.

if you look at the link, it was shut down for bad clicks, incitement to users to click, or similar. at the very least he could have said in the reply something like "we don't think we have people clicking on links, but if you could provide some IPs we might be able to track down someone at the paper who's being over-enthusiastic".

even if he knows nothing like that has happened he could have added to the reply (talking about XML uploads, copyright issues) something like "these don't seem to fit into the ilicit activities listed. we don't have incitements to click on ads (see ...) so if the above isn't relevant we suspect there has been some mistaken clicking locally. we have educated the users and we've put in place the following measures to track ..."

instead, he shows no sign of having understood the issues and no inclination to help solve the problem. he just whines.

this is basic psychology. you need something from these people. so you try to act like you understand and want to help, even if you think they are incompetent assholes.

[edit: maybe i come across as unsympathetic. i can understand how maddening this must be. but surely that's more reason to get it fixed? and to get it fixed you need to cooperate, not act like a victim. at least, that's how i would play it (it's _his job_ to make this work).]

<comment><USER6> Am I reading something different than you? Perhaps my reading comprehension is as poor as "the guy at the newspaper".

The "list of issues" Google provides is a generic list of possible reasons. Essentially, "Thanks for choosing Google. Your account has been disabled. Here is a list of reasons we normally disable an account with no warning. You may or may not have directly or indirectly done any of the activities listed, but we're not going to tell you either way. Feel free to figure it out. If you think you know and have taken steps to remedy the issue(s), then please let us know by submitting an appeal. However, you only get one chance and our single response to your appeal is final."

So this guy and every other person that has to go through this terrible experience has a right to be mad and express their anger.

And it's not a matter of being able to read. It's a matter of Google's terrible customer service.

<comment><USER7> Google tried this in NSW, and they had to reinstate the account and all th money owing. Helps to have. Strong regulator! [http://www.smartcompany.com.au/internet/20120206-meet-the- en...](http://www.smartcompany.com.au/internet/20120206-meet-the-entrepreneur- who-took-on-google-after-his-adsense-account-was-suspended-and-won.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's most likely that "invalid clicks" have occurred. If you clicked a few times on your own ads, this is why. It could also be a competitor intentionally trying to take you down. They just simulate automated clicks from the same IP on your ads. In this case you would have no control, and Google would yet be justified in destroying your account because of the activity that your participation in their network is generating - even if it is through no fault of your own.

This is one of many reasons why Adsense is not recommended. Another reason is that fact that they take so long to pay. No one pays on Net-60 anymore, except Google, because they can get away with it.

You are lucky though. In many cases, they wait until you've sent them a ton of traffic for 60 days - just before payday. They then tell you that you aren't being paid, close your account, and refuse to provide a reason for it. There is no indication about how much (if any) of the traffic you aren't being paid for is being refunded to the advertisers. I'd suspect it's not anywhere near 100%.

I'd suggest you join a CPA network that pays weekly and then choose advertisers from their inventory.

<comment><USER9> They pay net 30.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Questionable Decision #1

You went from something you paid for (Brightcove) to something free (Youtube).

Questionable Decision #2 You put all your eggs in one basket with a platform (Youtube) that's known to have horrible support AND act unilaterally in its own favor with totally automated systems.

You have somewhat low view counts. (Based on what's stated in the HN comments page, I'm too lazy to look) I'm not sure what you expected, but it looks like old media jumping on a new media bandwagon and expecting it all to just work.

<comment><USER11> Fair enough but fark adsense. I had my account locked out as well after getting click bombed. Horrible customer service/follow up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here is the problem:

"We migrated all of our videos from the expensive Brightcove platform in August and went live on YouTube in August and on our site with YouTube on August 22, using the embedded player."

That is all. Google is free and nice but it is not really smart to run business based on company which essentially has no support.

</comment><comment><USER13> I run a moderately successful chat site , and have been utilizing Adsense for almost 5 years, with an average revenue of around $8000/month. For no apparent reason our site was removed from Adsense.. Apparently Google has recently purchased Meebo, and as a result have been shutting down and have added 'no chat sites' to their policy..

</comment><comment><USER14> Adsense does this 99% of the time when the content provider clicks on the Adsense links on their page. Basically, you can't even test the adsense links, especially if you aren't sending a lot of clicks.

</comment><comment><USER15> Wow ... two in one day may be a new record and if Google doesn't step up with answers, they'll end up scaring everyone away. I completely understand their perceived need for secrecy, but is there some critical mass that once reached will cause business to decline?

The other HN link: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4585043>

<comment><USER16> their customer support it pretty bad, but their ad tech, and hence their profitability, is so much better than anyone else they have no real competition

i have agents approach me directly with ad networks specifically targetting my niche, and the best I've seen is off by more than a factor 10 when it comes to revenue

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Man, I could write pages about how badly Google executes on AdSense customer service.

You'd think that for all of the smart people who work there they'd figure something out that makes sense and is fair for all involved.

I mean, without thinking too hard, things like:

\- Probation periods starting at zero revenue and ramping-up based on various criteria

\- No account cancellation but rather revenue throttling WITH good feedback for site/content owner to fix problems

\- Paid account verification. I'm sure most of us would not mind paying a one time or annual $1,000 fee to be verified and have real customer service. If you have a real business this is nothing.

Think about the revenue throttling idea. You do something they don't approve of and your revenue is throttled down. Some feedback is provided. You make some changes. If they are adequate, revenue throttles back up. Conceptually simple.

One argument against this is that you could be teaching scammers how to work around the rules. Not so. You are teaching scammers to work within the rules. If Google is smart enough in guidance and feedback they stand to turn questionable sites into "law abiding" sites. Those who don't play by the rules get to host ads and make no revenue or nearly nothing. I think this would be a far better approach.

They also need a learning mode. I worked with someone who implemented AdSense and didn't really understand it all. He didn't really do anything violently bad. I don't remember the details, but the account got shut-down within a week. This was a case of an honest business person who probably doesn't have a single molecule of malice in his body that got treated like crap by Google for not knowing what they want. The problem is that you can't know what they want, not all of it.

There needs to be a "learning mode". Maybe the throttling period is exactly that. Make it a smoothly rising function that is driven by quality criteria that is communicated clearly and effectively. As long as you develop your site you get flags to guide you into compliance. This, to me at least, makes too much sense.

<comment><USER18> Yes, yes, yes, this.

And the thing is, Google aren't losing free users or pennies with this crap. I know of one SINGLE case where Google's silly Adsense banning policies lost the Big G 6 figures a year - because they couldn't be bothered to have a human get in touch and just auto-banned. As I've mentioned elsewhere, they've dropped low 5 figures a year by disabling my Adsense account with no clear explanation why.

I really, really cannot see what the business case here is. Can anyone enlighten me?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> How come we still haven't seen a YC company competing with Adsense/Adwords?

<comment><USER20> I'd love to see some competition, but it's a tough nut to crack. Yahoo gave it a try for a few years, but ended up shutting their offering down. Google has millions of paying advertisers, billions of page views and the ability to match them up in real time. All the while providing analytics to both sides. You're not going to beat them at efficiency.

I get pitches from ad networks all the time, but they are almost never able to beat AdSense. Google never had to set up a conference call to win my business, they just do a better job,

<comment><USER18> Yahoo have just opened their offering up again, in partnership with Media.net.

I currently run ads through Media.net, and they're responsive and good to work with (so far). I'm quite excited by this new development.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: $0.10/GB/Month for storage, unlimited free bandwidth. Interested? - <AUTHOR> I'm highly considering starting a cloud storage company, with an offering similar to Amazon S3 with a lower price per GB for storage and unlimited free bandwidth.
In terms of background, I am a software developer who has been building high end servers for nearly 10 years. I've assembled a team of engineers who understand the complexity of managing petabytes of data.
As a team, we have spent the last three months developing a server strategy that is scalable and supports very fast transfer speeds. Nearly every component within the server has redundancy. Because we are building the servers ourselves, we can afford to replicate any uploaded data over three servers.
We have developed a partnership with a high-end datacenter management company in Montreal to provide the colocation and bandwidth. Their partnership has allowed us a dedicated 1000megabit line to each rack, and can pool this bandwidth to allow an overall connection of a few gigabits per second.
Our server design and the partnership created allows us to have an overall design that allows for triple redundancy across a few datacenters as well as very fast access speeds.
We can profitably offer this at $0.10 per GB stored without ever charging for bandwidth.
Fully understanding the brand name appeal of Amazon and Rackspace, is there room for a new entrant in the cloud storage market?
Is having the datacenters in Canada an issue?
Looking forward to hearing what everyone has to say.
JB <comment><USER2> There is no such thing as unlimited bandwidth. You can get away with claiming that to n00bs. But folks that _really_ need a lot of bandwidth may actually feel more comfortable if you say you will provide them with 100MBPS solid BW than "unlimited".

<comment><USER3> _There is no such thing as unlimited bandwidth_

Maybe there is a hidden cost, such as charging per request.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How do you convince people you are going to be as reliable over a span of years as the big name companies?

(The mere act of conducting this kind of informal market research is a clue that you may not be -- your interest in the market is tentative. And making claims that could fail if tested -- 'unlimited bandwidth' -- similarly suggests unseriousness.)

Having buy-in at launch from major companies on multi-year deals could address these concerns by sending strong signals of viability and social proof.

</comment><comment><USER5> Isn't the pitfall here that someone could store a 1 gigabyte file on your service and then transfer 5000 gigabytes a month. At the end of the month you collect your 10 cents.

</comment><comment><USER2> I'd be very wary of assuming zero bandwidth cost in your business model. Yes you have a partnership right now. But partnerships are made and broken all the time. What are the chances you can get another partnership for free bandwidth if the current one fails?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good question. You're right, the cost of bandwidth is not zero. The partnership allowed us to get a good price on a dedicated 1000mbps line with unlimited use as a fixed monthly cost. Because we aren't paying per GB of transfer, we can pass this savings along to the customer.

<comment><USER2> If your total bandwidth is 1000mbps, it is far from "unlimited". I ran a somewhat popular site that req'd 200mbps. Your offer seems ideal and could save me lots of money. Until I consider that longterm your model is very unsustainable and you'd probably hate sites like mine...which brings me to my point...you might as well think more about what segment of users you want to target and have an offer that addresses their needs and concerns.

Do you want to be most like hostgator or softlayer or amazon S3? They all serve very different profile of customers and have different paths to longterm sustainability.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have to agree with the others about bandwidth. I run a high-traffic gallery that hosts user-generated images. Our gallery has about 300 GB of images, but we move over 130 TB of bandwidth per month. If I moved my site to your service would you still be making a profit at $30/month?

</comment><comment><USER7> Free is overrated. Pay attention to SLA vs. Cost .

The most important deciding factor is going to be your terms of your SLA vs. you price.

And finally, your API . AWS wins by providing a simple API that make routine tasks easy to execute.

</comment><comment><USER8> It sounds interesting but storage has no real relationship with bandwidth.

That imgur site has 11 gigabytes of images - $1,100 per month - and it's serving 10 terabytes a day of traffic.

What happens if the next imgur signs up?

<comment><USER8> Oops actually $1.10, not $1,100.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > and can pool this bandwidth to allow an overall connection of a few gigabits > per second.

How do you prevent one customer from hogging all the available upstream bandwidth?

</comment><comment><USER10> Why don't you start an online backup service (that is reasonably priced)? I've always wanted to use one, but they are so expensive, when really you should mostly just be renting hard drive space, as bandwidth usage is generally minimal (backup is done once, and then sits there forever and is never even re-downloaded 99% of the time).

</comment><comment><USER11> I think there is definitely room in the market.

I myself would not have an issue with it being in Canada, and for some, it might even be a plus.

How exactly could the files on your storage be accessed? I assume http ?

</comment><comment><USER12> Just as a note, you will be horrifically raped if you try to offer "unlimited free bandwidth." Raped like never imagined you could be raped.</comment>


Roundabouts have turned a corner - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/international/21587244-roundabouts-have-turned-corner-circling-globe?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/circlingtheglobe

<comment><USER2> Imagine you are one of the engineers behind traffic lights. That's something to be proud of, you've built something that keeps people safer, can allow emergency vehicles to pass through, are centrally controllable, it can do this this and this, EVERYONE knows about them... "Hey I'm the guy that invented the traffic light!"

BUT now look at the "primitive" roundabout. It wins. Something thats simpler, won't fail, and actually keeps people safer.

This is the dilemma I always fight with myself when I build tech solutions to problems: Does this really make it better? Just because I think its cool, or even that I am proud of it, doesn't mean its good for people to use. For me it always comes down to what is the best. I believe the best in anything is very objective, and that can often lead to very existential questions...

I make software that replaces paper tickets. The battle is always there when someone will say they just want to stick to paper tickets. Sometimes, its hard to disagree with them.

but when a customer pays me money, I start to feel better for awhile. Then the thought is not: 'is this the best solution to this problem'... but rather: 'is this the best thing I am capable of'

</comment><comment><USER3> I grew up in New England where there are a fair number of 'roundabouts' (or rotorys as we called them). They were part of my driving test to get my license as a teenager.

My take on them is that they probably do make traffic flow faster, but I was always a bit scared to enter them whilst driving as almost no one seemed to understand the rules. i.e. If you're taking the first exit of the rotary, you should be in the right hand lane, if your not, you should be in the left hand lane. As a result there was a lot of awkward lane changing by people whilst at high turn angles, which was messy, mostly folks in the right hand lane of the rotary going multiple exits and ultimately cutting off someone in the left hand rotary lane on the way to a single lane exit.

<comment><USER4> It's interesting that you call a roundabout a rotary, they are two different things actually - [http://www.cityofbrooklyncenter.org/DocumentCenter/Home/View...](http://www.cityofbrooklyncenter.org/DocumentCenter/Home/View/331)

<comment><USER3> For what it's worth when I took my driving test in ~1999 they were called rotaries but the dynamics and physical layout was more like roundabouts from your pdf. i.e. If properly entered there was no 'weave' area, it's just that there always seemed to be multiple cars in the rotary with no clue causing weaving. Ironically I've been back to that area recently and it's been physically changed and now looks much more like the rotary layout in your pdf.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Qatar made a lot of controversy here quite recently, as part of the crazy World Cup efforts for the next decade or so. Part of those efforts are removing all those roundabouts why? This article can say what it wants about R/As, but the maintenance improvements are lost as the rest of the traffic grinds to a halt and it severely impacts the local economy with crippling traffic.

People do not respect the flow of traffic here, being the major issue. It is hard to get people to use R/As properly if they do not understand intent. Traffic frequently grinds to a halt as people cut-across, going from the most inner lane out of the roundabout, or circle around in the outer lane and continue to the next exit. It is so common it is the common cause of accidents in the country's capital of Doha. Since the R/A is the nexus of the major chokepoints, an accident causes more severe traffic. The massive traffic is now compounded by the fact they must build intersections inside the center of the R/A, and tear up the road to properly re-align. This never goes smoothly, and the countries traffic has become worse over the last few months as people continue to do this.

So, perhaps the cost is lower, but traffic dynamics are terrible in large cities where the rules are misunderstood, which I assume to be all of them.

<comment><USER6> Roundabouts are extremely common in the UK and work very well - but (a) they are well understood, and (b) my experience is that drivers here are probably more polite than average.

<comment><USER5> And hence my point. Coming from the US, and many expats there are from the UK, the amount of stern criticism leads me to believe driver education will continue to be a problem, and they need intersections and more clearly cut rules (read: radar detectors, with expensive fines, increasingly more common in Qatar) and things will continue along the same course, just faster adoption of cultural standards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Roundabouts rule! I live in France and can drive from here to the store without ever stopping. Single lane roundabouts are common, multi lane roundabouts are more rare. The 5-lane roundabout at the Arc de Triomphe is a white-knuckler.

They work simply: each car entering the roundabout must yield. I've never had a problem.

I have had issues in the roundabouts in Seattle. Partly because they inexplicably put a left turn lane in them. The other reason is most Americans are not familiar with the concept and balk when using them.

<comment><USER8> One-lane roundabouts are fairly common where I live in Germany and I like them just fine, but your ridiculous muti-lane roundabouts confuse the hell out of me! Even on the two-lane roundabout between a place I stayed for a week and the nearest supermarket, I probably pissed off a couple of locals every time. :(

<comment><USER9> > your ridiculous muti-lane roundabouts confuse the hell out of me!

It's really not difficult, at least when there are only two lanes:

* If you're going to travel for less than half the roundabout (going right), stay on the outer lane

* If you're going to travel for more than half the roundabout (going left), go on the inner lane

* If you're going straight, you can do either (it's mostly a question of traffic, if there's no traffic you can cut through the inner lane)

The second is more risky as not all drivers use their signals, let alone correctly, but normally you give your output direction when entering the roundabout (so use left signals if going left and right when going right), then cut off the signals when on the roundabout and signal right when you're between the exit you want to take and the previous one.

If you fear multi-lane roundabouts or are lost, just stay on the outer lane and do not use your turn signals. People will get slightly annoyed when they gave way and you were turning before them, but nothing more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Roundabouts are _everywhere_ in Australia and I never understood why I almost never saw them in America.

<comment><USER11> People are not used to roundabouts in America. I lived in place where a whole residential area (i.e. very light traffic, low speed limit, school zones) used roundabouts instead of stop signs. Almost every other time I've seen another car on a roundabout it's been making a left turn by driving clockwise (in America people normally drive on the right side of the road so you need to drive counterclockwise). On a more lively roundabout that was on my way to a freeway I had to be very careful as a significant number of merging cars believed they have a right of way. If there had been a way from my home that did not have a roundabout I'd rather use that because roundabouts were really scary.

<comment><USER12> I've regularly used three roundabouts in my life in the US for different daily commutes, two of which were very busy: I've never seen anyone try to drive clockwise. They do cause confusion for the drivers, who are unlikely to regularly encounter them and are never sure who believes who has right of way, but not clueless to that degree. Right of way on single-lane traffic circles is something people can figure out through driving slow and common sense.

I am not a fan of 2-3 lane roundabout / traffic circles which try to use signal-less operation, because right of way becomes intractable and lane changes difficult.

<comment><USER11> That's not really clueless. I also lived near an overpass with ramps (where you can get on/off the upper street by a ramp, which is, naturally, unidirectional) and since the upper street was not divided it was possible to drive on a ramp in a wrong way. And I have seen couple cars doing just that. From my understanding, quite a few drivers do not really know traffic rules beyond "red means stop" and just follow other cars. If there are no other cars to follow they quickly get confused by any unusual road structure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> In some of the skiing villages in Colorado the intersections were ripped out and roundabouts were added. I heard it was to make the towns seem more European. As a driver I realized it made traffic flow much, much faster. What I do wonder is if roundabouts that service major roads have a lower accident rate than an intersection with traffic lights.

</comment><comment><USER14> These _absolutely_ do not work in Asia - they are pretty common in the Indian subcontinent and SE asia.

However, fundamentally it is a self-regulated mechanism where you need to follow rules like allow merging from left, etc. Traffic signals have more simplistic rules and can be more strictly enforced. The problem happens in heavy traffic when you are literally fighting for your exit - there is no way that you can claim to have been following the rules.

In India, a lot of roundabouts are being converted to traffic signals to save time and safety.

<comment><USER9> > These absolutely do not work in Asia - they are pretty common in the Indian > subcontinent and SE asia.

Considering traffic lights don't work either (unless there are a few cops looking for coffee money under the light), that's not exactly surprising.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Gloucestershire in the UK have a habit of putting traffic lights on roundabouts which as you can imagine completely defeats the point of one. A round about automatically prioritises traffic based on demand. This combination of two contradictory solutions is the work of the devil.

<comment><USER16> Roundabouts need traffic lights if any exit has a continuous stream of traffic; it starves the entrance immediately before the exit. If there's much traffic entering before a popular exit, it can easily get backed up. I've seen several roundabouts get traffic lights, or get converted back into a traffic light junction, because of this, as traffic patterns changed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> That's one of the things I've found frustrating about driving in America. In England, approaching a roundabout with a good open view to your right you can see when there's no approaching traffic and maintain 20-30mph. Whereas in America, despite the fact I could see it was clear, I had to come to a complete stop.

</comment><comment><USER18> "American authorities say swapping crossroads for roundabouts cuts deaths by 90% and crashes by a third."

</comment><comment><USER19> Plus I bet it is near impossible to text-while-driving in a roundabout, well at least not and stay alive.

Might make people actually pay attention to their driving if there were more in the USA.

Do other countries have a similar text-while-driving problem?

<comment><USER9> > Plus I bet it is near impossible to text-while-driving in a roundabout, well > at least not and stay alive.

Depends on the size of the roundabout, on some of them you can more or less go straight through (the bends can be smaller than a chicane).

> Do other countries have a similar text-while-driving problem?

Yes. A number of countries have laws against operation of a mobile phone while driving (be it texting or calling).

</comment></comment><comment><USER20>
      Nevada built America's first in 1990

I grew up in Orinda, and for as long as I can remember there has been a roundabout in theater square[1].

[1] [https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!q=orinda&data=!1m4!1m3!...](https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!q=orinda&data=!1m4!1m3!1d375!2d-122.1822754!3d37.8791622!2m1!1e3!4m15!2m14!1m13!1s0x80857cbd5dc823ff%3A0x89dac03702126789!3m8!1m3!1d5884509!2d-119.306607!3d37.2691745!3m2!1i1439!2i695!4f13.1!4m2!3d37.8771476!4d-122.1796888&fid=7)

<comment><USER21> That appears to be a traffic circle. Entry to roundabouts is controlled entirely by yield signs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've often suspected that the extensive use of stop signs instead of yields or traffic circles in the US on suburban or low traffic streets and roads is a conspiracy run by the brake pad and oil industries.

</comment><comment><USER23> The other day I actually got to see inside one of those big green boxes on the intersection corners in SF that control the street lights. I was shocked at how much equipment was needed to operate one of those. It's as if there has been no progress in the industry with respect to minimization because it's not a selling point, only price and functionality are.

<comment><USER24> Yes. It's as if companies don't waste money on R&D when there's no competition.

That's how most of industrial America (and the world) works. Competition breeds innovation, or something like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The article mentions "dutch roundabouts" without explanation. Here is a page describing them:

[http://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/a-modern- amster...](http://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/a-modern-amsterdam- roundabout/)

</comment><comment><USER26> France has half of the world roundabouts with close to 30 000 ones (for a total of 36000 cities)</comment>


Lenovo Reveals Unexpected Details About Summer 2020 ThinkPads - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2020/05/08/lenovo-has-2-awesome-surprises-for-linux-thinkpad-customers-in-2020/ <comment><AUTHOR> Some real exciting stuff in there:

> _As a testament to that, Pearson says that should you decide to wipe one of > these ThinkPad hard drives and install a clean version of Fedora 32 > Workstation, the only difference from what Lenovo ships will be some > documentation. No proprietary blobs, no "Lenovo exclusive" software._

Mainlined fingerprint reader drivers, mainline stylus support with Wacom! Pretty neat.

</comment><comment><USER2> Advertisement, imho.</comment>


What happens when you launch Google Chrome for the first time? - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165493206441779200 <comment><USER2> Google Chrome [https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11654932064417792...](https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165493206441779200)

Microsoft Edge (Chromium) Beta [https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11661386925090652...](https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1166138692509065218)

Opera [https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11653532133081292...](https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165353213308129281)

Vivaldi (Same thread as Opera) [https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11653581559220592...](https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165358155922059266)

Dissenter [https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11653770639326371...](https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165377063932637184)

Brave [https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11653912119995187...](https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165391211999518720)

Mozilla Firefox [https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11658588961766604...](https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165858896176660480)

Cheers!

<comment><USER3> And to read the above a bit easier:

Google Chrome [https://threadreaderapp.com/jonathansampson/status/116549320...](https://threadreaderapp.com/jonathansampson/status/1165493206441779200)

Microsoft Edge (Chromium) Beta [https://threadreaderapp.com/jonathansampson/status/116613869...](https://threadreaderapp.com/jonathansampson/status/1166138692509065218)

Opera [https://threadreaderapp.com/jonathansampson/status/116535321...](https://threadreaderapp.com/jonathansampson/status/1165353213308129281)

Vivaldi (Same thread as Opera) [https://threadreaderapp.com/jonathansampson/status/116535815...](https://threadreaderapp.com/jonathansampson/status/1165358155922059266)

Dissenter [https://threadreaderapp.com/jonathansampson/status/116537706...](https://threadreaderapp.com/jonathansampson/status/1165377063932637184)

Brave [https://threadreaderapp.com/jonathansampson/status/116539121...](https://threadreaderapp.com/jonathansampson/status/1165391211999518720)

Mozilla Firefox [https://threadreaderapp.com/jonathansampson/status/116585889...](https://threadreaderapp.com/jonathansampson/status/1165858896176660480)

<comment><USER4> "We value your privacy"

Always a good sign that they don't.

<comment><USER5> Oh, but they do. The same way a group of muggers does when they stop you in a dark alley and say, "we value your money".

(Hell, they'll likely offer you an option to consent or proceed without consent to receive reduced experience.)

<comment><USER6> That's a nice analogy, can extend it a bit by offering a "reduced experience due to broken limbs"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Did you know that every Opera install on windows and mac using the net- installer gets a uniquely modified exe or zip file with information about the download so that Opera can track where/why a browser was downloaded?

On windows they modify the PE header of the exe, and adds extra information to a certificate table at the end of the file, without affecting the signature of the file. (Last 4 bytes of the file gives the size of the payload, giving you the offset to start reading a string that starts with OPR followed by a base64 encoded string, which contains a checksum and a json object. The json object contains country of origin, http_referrer of the download, a timestamp, UTM- parameters seen on the referrer, the user agent and a uuid assigned to the download. This uuid is kept for the life time of the browser install.)

On mac, the process is a bit different, but there they use appledouble (._-meta files) to modify the zip-file on the fly while downloading including the same type of data.

<comment><USER8> Everyone knows (or should know) Opera is adware/malware now, after the ownership changed.

If you liked Opera, try Vivaldi. It's made by some ex-opera people, reminds me of good old Opera 6.

<comment><USER7> This was implemented way before Opera changed ownership, and as far as I can see from the outside, not much has changed in this code. The main difference I see, is that they have removed the source IP from the JSON.

So, if any, they are tracking less data in that data blob after they changed ownership.

(I worked on this feature at Opera back in the days)

<comment><USER9> What was this information used for?

<comment><USER7> Statistics. We wanted to know how different campaigns worked, how the user retention from different partners was, and also benchmark how well the autoupdate system worked. While I worked for Opera this was strictly for internal use, and a very limited set of people had access to logs and raw data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A reality check to those who want to push apps and more workloads into the browser (via WASM, PWAs/excessive JavaScript, or whatever), with the browser becoming a gatekeeper. Not only is the browser a laughably complicated app runtime that isn't capable to do anything with local files (so you need "services" to store your eg. photos), it's also blatantly power-inefficient and a privacy catastrophe. Where has the idea of personal computing shared by a whole generation gone?

<comment><USER11>
        a privacy catastrophe

Much less so than a native application.

Native applications can access the web in less restricted ways than websites.

Native applications have more access to your local machine than websites.

Websites for the win!

What we need is a user friendly browser.

<comment><USER12> No, what we need is a proper permissions model for desktop applications. The idea of permissions being per-user is almost useless in this day and age where most desktop machines have one user (or a small number of users sharing files) and where most applications are downloaded from untrusted sources.

We need proper automatic sandboxing of native apps, restricting file, network and resource access without prior permission from the user.

<comment><USER13> Like iOS then?

Oh, evil golden cages, right?

<comment><USER12> False dichotomy. A cage _restricting the rightful owner of a computer_ is not the same as a cage _that the rightful owner can use to restrict untrusted software_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> These are great write ups! Just a shame they are in the format of a twitter "conversation". The readability really sucks and don't let me get started on the UX :/

<comment><USER2> I've noticed multiple people pinging twitter.com/threadreaderapp at the ends of these threads. It rolls up the tweets into a more traditional single-page, blog format.

<comment><USER15> Sure that helps... Or they could've just written it in a sane format to begin with, and link to that on their twitter.

<comment><USER16> True, but what if that wouldn't have reached as many people and we wouldn't be having this conversation?

<comment><USER17> Huh? Loads of links on HN are not to twitter. Most of them in fact. I don't see how twitter is a prerequisite for us having the opportunity to discuss something here.

The reason people post stuff to twitter is because they have an addiction to the gamification of social media like/share statistics.

<comment><USER16> Did you sincerely think that the crux of my message was that Twitter links are a prerequisite for having the opportunity to discuss something here?

<comment><USER17> Well you did suggest that this discussion would go unhad, where it not for twitter, so yes?

<comment><USER16> Thanks. In that case I don't think it's worth carrying on more discussion, given that you are interpreting something entirely different from what I meant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Author is a developer on Brave.

<comment><USER19> Yea the difference in his analysis of brave is really different: [https://mobile.twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165391211...](https://mobile.twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165391211999518720)

Sure, all requests are now sent to one location, including (!!) extension (Tor, https everywhere, etc) downloads used by brave. What about the possibility of the brave folks modifying those extensions to suit their needs? If I am needing to trust Tor, I'm going to download Tor from the appropriate location, not from brave. Based on the language he used reviewing other browsers, I suspect if that behavior was seen on anything other than brave the prognosis would be different.

<comment><USER2> I don't hide the fact that I work for Brave; I mention it in numerous threads and responses. What do you feel I handled differently on account of my association with Brave? Will gladly correct any mistakes.

To your question, Brave couldn't get away with modifying extensions on the fly. This would cause integrity checks on the client to fail. Not to mention, the code to do this would have to land in our public repos on GitHub, where we would quickly be tarred and feathered.

If you're capable of running the Tor browser, we encourage you to do so. Brave isn't as good as the Tor browser if you're smart enough to use the later. That said, if you need a browser that can also make non-Tor connections, etc., then Brave is probably more ideal.

<comment><USER20> > Not to mention, the code to do this would have to land in our public repos > on GitHub, where we would quickly be tarred and feathered.

What is the status of reproducible builds for the Brave browser?

<comment><USER2> Please clarify if I'm missing your point, but you can build Brave today. See github.com/brave/brave-browser. Let me know if you run into any issues.

<comment><USER21> I don't see any mentions of reproducible builds over there.

If you're not familiar what reproducible builds are, I suggest you examine the following article:

* [https://brendaneich.com/2014/01/trust-but-verify/](https://brendaneich.com/2014/01/trust-but-verify/)

Mozilla, however, is different, in that all builds are posted to ftp.mozilla.org, in a versioned manner, and kept there for a while, which, at least in theory, makes it easier to verify or analyse the builds.

What is the situation with Brave? Can I download a version released a few months ago? As it is, the browser is not only not really versioned (at least in the binary form), but there's not even a way to disable it from automatically updating itself. Self-modifying code, where the user has no control over the channel under which the modifications are pushed, is inherently insecure from the reproducibility's perspective.

<comment><USER2> You can get older (and many incremental) builds from [https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/tags](https://github.com/brave/brave- browser/tags). Hope this helps! There is desire within the team for reproducible builds, and I'll see to it that these coals are stoked. Our intent is to be as open, transparent, and accountable as we can be. Brave's mentality is "Can't be evil", as opposed to "Don't be evil." Thank you for the feedback!

<comment><USER21> Those are Git tags; they have nothing to do with reproducible builds, because you're not providing the executable binaries that are the ones being distributed. It's a huge downgrade in terms of reproducibility of builds compared to Firefox. (It works for Google with Google Chrome because they have an entirely different business model where the whole thing is a walled-garden by design.)

<comment><USER2> Yes, I know those are Git tags. Click on them to find associated binaries. For instance, [https://github.com/brave/brave- browser/releases/tag/v0.71.44](https://github.com/brave/brave- browser/releases/tag/v0.71.44). Not all tags have binaries, but most do. Those that reach a build channel always do.

<comment><USER21> What a mess, seriously! What is the retention policy? How far into the past are the binaries stored?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Form the related firefox post:

"The tab discussing the importance of Privacy loads in the background, bringing along with it the Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics. Hello, Google."

The irony is palpable

<comment><USER23> The irony is that nobody bothers to look at things past their face value but then claims to care.

Mozilla has a custom contract protecting your privacy while using google's software: [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436#c14](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436#c14)

<comment><USER5> Honestly, for the amount of flak they still get because of it, they really should've dropped GA by now and wrote their own analytics backend. If they're serious about valuing privacy and preventing tracking, that custom backend wouldn't need to be complicated.

<comment><USER24> Does it matter if they get flak for it if their contract does actually protect privacy? Or is privacy only for marketing and not an actual principle they care about?

Writing an analytics backend is not a trivial thing, and more stuff like that means less resources for Firefox development. It's far more sensible to do what they did, which was negotiate a contract with those who know what they're doing.

<comment><USER5> From the point of view of their principles, the contract with Google is fine as long as it protects privacy. Some people will always be quick to jump to conclusions, but there's a _practical_ problem when such people form a good chunk of your market (and can amplify their outrage via media).

It's a practical problem. On the one hand, you have people turned off by the _perception_ of Mozilla betraying its principles. On the other hand, you have resources to be directed to substitute the analytics backend. The right thing to do would be to pick an option that maximizes the amount of resources available for Firefox development/Mozilla's mission.

My impression is that building and maintaining an analytics backend consistent with their mission would not require _that_ much of resources, so the balance would fall in favor of doing it. But maybe (probably?) I'm wrong about this, and it's better to stick with Google for now.

<comment><USER25> From the point of view of their principles, the contract with Google is fine as long as it honored by Google. Hard to check that though, because you never know what Google really does with that data. Google also doesn't have a very good track record with privacy. So, yeah, the contract is fine, but there's also soo much wrong with it. Who trusts it? Mozilla? They seem to. Their target demographic? The people who are smart enough to understand that you can switch your browser, and who don't choose Chrome but Firefox? Those people, not so much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It was unexpected for me that Firefox is calling google. It surprises me and disappoint me that EdgeChrome is calling google too. I was hoping for a Google Free Experience with EgdeChrome. That EdgeChrome is calling Facebook leaves me speechless.

<comment><USER27> Mozilla has a custom agreement with Google not to sell your data, for what that's worth.

<comment><USER25> If you trust Google honoring that agreement, for what it's worth.

<comment><USER28> It's a contract. They'd be in pretty hot water pretty fast if they didn't honor it, especially in the EU.

<comment><USER17> > _They'd be in pretty hot water pretty fast if they didn't honor it,_

Only if they got caught, and only if the person who caught them saw fit to make waves about it and let other people know. And even then they could likely worm their way out of any real trouble by apologizing and pleading that it was accidental (because the sycophants would likely eat that shit up.)

Corporations break contracts every damn day. There is no way for me to even hope to verify that Google isn't breaking their contract in this case. You and others in this thread expect me to trust Google and trust that the threat of a contract breach lawsuit will keep them compliant, but there is no reason that I should. They don't deserve the benefit of my doubt. They lost that a long time ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> While this is all somewhat interesting, I'm not sure what the point here is - all of these things seem to be reasonable things to do?

<comment><USER10> You call FF displaying pro-privacy promotionals while connecting to GA and Google Tag Manager reasonable?

<comment><USER30> Heads up, Mozilla is on the way to be notorious Google services/Google Cloud user [0]. Recently, they started adoption of the Google Spanner in the Firefox-Sync related backend services, while in others they adopted the Google Pub Sub. The use of GA and GTM might seem like hypocrisy but my guess mozillians don't have enough workforce and/or assets to control infrastructure to roll their own analytics platform.

[0]: [https://github.com/search?q=org%3Amozilla- services+google&ty...](https://github.com/search?q=org%3Amozilla- services+google&type=Commits)

<comment><USER10> > _mozillians don 't have enough workforce and/or assets to control > infrastructure to roll their own analytics platform_

That's hardly an excuse when you want to differentiate on privacy, is it?

<comment><USER27> Worth noting that Mozilla does have a special contract with Google, they say preserver privacy.

<comment><USER10> Yet still I think we should point it out. Mozilla can't have their cake, and eat it, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> A chrome fork w/o Google "Google Chromium, sans integration with Google" [https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled- chromium](https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium)

The caveat with this software is that it doesn't really have good automatic update support so there's a high user spend on managing security.

<comment><USER32> An auto-updating browser is essential to me. For nearly all other software I abhor automatic updates, but for something as vulnerable as a browser it's absolutely crucial.

<comment><USER33> Firefox or chrome has been updated is a much better experience than "your brother printer software has updates" every time I opened my computer.

I just updated the printer! Nope it's the update checker that's needs updating, ok. Nope still not up to date, now the installer needs updating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm programming since the 1980s. This feels very, very strange to me. I wouldn't want to rely on so many moving parts even after the whole software got installed.

They have a totally different philosophy than us old folks.

</comment><comment><USER35> > r3---sn-8xgp1vo-5uae.gvt1.com

It is not the same but it looks like the punycode used in internationalized domain names.

<comment><USER2> More information on these: [https://github.com/lennylxx/ipv6-hosts/wiki/sn- domains](https://github.com/lennylxx/ipv6-hosts/wiki/sn-domains)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> One thing I would be interested in is file system activity. When does Chrome install its Keystone updater? What other files does it touch?

<comment><USER2> I was thinking about this too. In fact, to do my review of Edge and Firefox, I had to dig into the file-system to grok where/how profiles are persisted. These are different than Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, and Brave (which all share a common Chromium ancestry). I am also curious (as a Windows user) how the Registry is affected by each browser. That too is something I'd like to investigate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The first thing I do with newly installed Chrome is to disable its auto updater. I do not wish one day to find the feature I relied upon missing and had to download and install another old version.

Especially like about:net-internals.

<comment><USER38> If you're running on Windows there's a group policy templates pack[1] for tweaking updates for Google products. Copy it then run _gpedit.msc_ and disable auto-updates.

[1] [https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6350036](https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6350036)

<comment><USER37> Thanks. Normaly I just bruteforce set the folder permission to 000 so that no matter how Chrome checks the update it can never be written to disk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I wonder if the binary download with language information is a protobuf? If so, it should be easy to get a slightly better look at it with one of the various online protobuf decoders, such as this one:

[https://protogen.marcgravell.com/decode](https://protogen.marcgravell.com/decode)

[https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11654932308903403...](https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165493230890340355)

<comment><USER2> There are quite a few protobuf responses. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get Marc's service to work for me. I'd have to revisit it at a later time to peer further into the bits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Author doesn't mention safe browsing data (a random projection of domains believed to be serving malware). Does that mean the chrome binary comes with the initial data in the package?

<comment><USER2> I do mention SafeBrowsing data in other reviews; if it didn't come up in the Chrome review, it may be the case that Chrome uses the Lookup API rather than the Update API. I would have to dig a bit more to confirm this.

<comment><USER2> I took another dip into Google last night. SafeBrowsing is hit, but it was hit much later than in other browsers from what I could tell. I believe I had to attempt navigation before it was called.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> When software on your machine starts doing things before you ask it to start doing things, it calls into question who it's really working for.

</comment><comment><USER42> So how much of this is due to the default bad configuration?

I would like to see a variation of this test when you start with network turned off, configure the browser to not use Google services, not open an initial tab, remove all default extensions and turn off telemetry. Then turn network back on.

I would also like to install ublock right from the start but that is a bit harder without network.

</comment><comment><USER43> The application IDs can likely be paired up with cookies later in your browsing journey.

Their safe browsing API is (or was, 3 years ago anyways) also downloaded by Firefox.

All it takes really is one unique piece of identifying information for a large proportions of your browsing to be known to Google and attributed to one entity (you)

</comment><comment><USER44> Johnathan, based on your reviews so far, which browser is the best of the bunch as far as shadiness is concerned, and which one is the very worst?

<comment><USER2> I've shared this disclaimer elsewhere, but I work for Brave. That said, based on an objective evaluation, I think Brave is the best. This conclusion is drawn by the results themselves. Brave doesn't pass me around from third-party to third-party, allowing cookies to collect on my session like barnacles.

As for "very worst," I'm sure there are far, far worse browsers out there

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Chrome 32 calls Edge 130+ Opera 19 Firefox 26

</comment><comment><USER46> While I checked this tweet it takes 69 requests. Also noticed, when my computer turned off, it does 0 requests.

<comment><USER47> > when my computer turned off, it does 0 requests

I wouldn't be so sure

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Do the same for OSs. I recently put win7 through ufw to see what it was doing....lots of interesting calls. I allowed one app to get out to a specific IP and when Windows saw it get a few return packets it went bezerk trying to get out to Windows update etc.

<comment><USER2> I was doing a bit of this unintentionally, while monitoring network activity. It's intriguing to see which processes are calling out to which end points.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I tried opening Chromium on Linux yesterday (I use it sometimes for testing) and it prompted me to log in. I had to hit Cancel four or five times before being able to browse. Bizarre behaviour for a browser.

<comment><USER50> You also cannot log in on Google-owned websites, like YouTube, without signing in in the browser itself.

I haven't figured out a way to do so, at least. You can use guest tabs, but then you lose all of your customizations (extensions, bookmarks, etc.), so I don't consider that a viable option.

ungoogled-chromium removes this, but the current builds fail on my machine for some reason.

<comment><USER27> There's a toggle in settings called "Allow Chrome sign in" under "Advanced", only added after massive backslash.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> So if I choose to import cookies to Brave (which is the default option on first launch), I will have these preset cookies from other browsers as well?

<comment><USER2> Brave wouldn't know if the cookies were collected during a Chrome first-run, or explicit user navigation. They could also be picked up by direct chains during normal browsing.

To my knowledge, this type of knowledge would require updates to the underlying cookie specification itself, where additional meta information records the type of action responsible for setting the cookie (automatic vs user-navigation). But then, I would assume, everybody storing cookies would do so as 'user-navigation' to avoid getting cleaned out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I'd be curious to see the same network dumps, but from the very early versions of Chrome and Firefox 2 or 3 .. and maybe even IE6/7/8.

</comment><comment><USER53> Shouldnt some of these requests be hpkp requests to get verified public keys for ssl traffic?

<comment><USER54> Google Chrome has built-in public keys for Google's websites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Author did the same for other popular browser.

[https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11660058135483965...](https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1166005813548396549)

</comment><comment><USER56> Stopped using Firefox a while ago (recently). For a company so pro-privacy, they sure do have no problems with pushing 3rd party advertising content through their product.

<comment><USER57> What are you using instead?

<comment><USER56> Brave! Liking it so far.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> So Vivaldi or Brave? Pros and Cons?

<comment><USER2> I work on Brave (stated numerous times elsewhere). That said, Vivaldi was one of the better browsers I reviewed (as stated in that thread). I still think Brave is doing the most here, though. I did find a place last night where Brave failed to proxy a call, and reached out to my team this morning to work towards resolving. In my sincere opinion (based on objective criteria), Brave is the best browser to use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Microsoft Edge: Even with Chromium now, Microsoft gave us bigger reasons to avoid it.

</comment><comment><USER60> Time for a serious anti-trust lawsuit.

<comment><USER13> Based on what grounds?</comment></comment>


The Case for $500K Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> https://winklevosscapital.com/the-case-for-500k-bitcoin/ <comment><AUTHOR> I posted this because I think it's an interesting conversation. I do not agree at all with the "$500,000 bull case for Bitcoin".

There are IMHO some flaws in this analysis, that I encounter regularly.

1) USD, Gold, etc, are no longer going to be a good option as currency or store of value.

> Together, these assets represent $1.6 trillion dollars printed out of thin > air.

Bitcoin, Ethereum, all crypto is ALSO printed out of thin air. That's not what makes them NOT interesting.

2) > Money is a technology. It was first invented thousands of years ago to solve for the limitations of barter;

So, explain to me why we need a speculative asset like Bitcoin, instead of simply a "digital" dollar, or "digital" euro, and so on.

3) > Bitcoin is the world's first Internet-native money

No, Bitcoin is a decentralized form of currency; in fact, you could transact on Bitcoin even offline [0].

[0]: [https://hackernoon.com/completely-offline-bitcoin- transactio...](https://hackernoon.com/completely-offline-bitcoin- transactions-4e58324637bd)</comment>