this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2024
368 points (95.1% liked)

Selfhosted

39980 readers
881 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Bitwarden introduced a non-free dependency to their clients. The Bitwarden CTO tried to frame this as a bug but his explanation does not really make it any less concerning.

Perhaps it is time for alternative Bitwarden-compatible clients. An open source client that's not based on Electron would be nice. Or move to something else entirely? Are there any other client-server open source password managers?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (7 children)

Bitwarden is a very convenient password manager for an average computer user. It's very straightforward and easy to use.

I can see some bias here of the people who say "o, just use KeePass and sync the database over some cloud provider". What if there are conflicts? How do they deal with them? I can figure it our but most people I know, won't.

Even the password manager concept is a complicated concept to grasp for many people (that I know). And I can recommend them Bitwarden because it's relatively easy, but KeePass with sync? Maybe, if I commit to actively help them with it.

P.S. I've convinced several people to try out Linux, and they are willing to learn it, but even if they just need to use a browser, they struggle sometimes. I can't imagine them syncing the KeePass database.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

This is a common problem with Free software, and honestly I think it's our biggest one: we build stuff for ourselves and stop there. If we want our stuff to be adopted (which, for things that rely on network effects, we do) then we need to pay more attention to usability.

Here's a suggestion for anyone starting a project they think they might share. Before you start writing any code, write the documentation. Then rewrite it from the perspective of the least tech-literate person you know who you'd still want to use the project. Only after you've worked out how easy it should be for this person to get started, then you can start writing the thing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Ideally, the project should not require any documentation to read.

Yep, I know, I think everyone should read to learn, but I've seen so many times peoples' spark die once I tell them "I will send you the docs with clear instructions. If you have any questions, let me know :)". The reply is often " Oh, but it should tell me where to click".

Or maybe it's because the docs are too difficult, I don't know.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

The docs are not only often difficult for an inexperienced user, they commonly omit points of failure.

Various prerequisites, problematic settings, possibility of the user choosing the wrong menu etc. etc. should always be considered.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)