Solved Why does Kutt use so many google services?
-
For being self hosted and disconnected from the spying services, it has too many references to Google APIs and analytics.
Can those be cleansed or removed?
-
I guess you mean the usage of google fonts and things like that? This is probably best reported upstream. There is already
- https://github.com/thedevs-network/kutt/issues/373 (Google fonts)
- https://github.com/thedevs-network/kutt/issues/235 (Matomo)
-
@girish ah it was for the ReCaptchas which I never saw since it's blocked here. Thanks.
-
For interest, I'm finding https://www.localcdn.org handy for filtering out that sort of trojan tracking plague from the web browser at-least.
We're not here for a long time - but we are here for a good time :)
Jersey/UK
Work & Ecommerce Advice: https://brandlight.org
Personal & Software Tips: https://marcusquinn.com -
@marcusquinn uMatrix browser extension does it for me.
-
@robi Looks like uMatrix is something different, more like uBlock Origin, which seems to work well enough coupled with LocalCDN, also seems to be EOL'd:
-
@girish said in Why does Kutt use so many google services?:
usage of google fonts and things like that
On that topic it would be really cool to have a feature in Cloudron similar to what LocalCDN does in the user's browser, blocking or limiting tracking and data harvesting exposure to FAANG and others.
-
@yusf Interesting idea! Maybe worth just suggesting it to the author that there would be interest in a server-side version: https://codeberg.org/nobody/LocalCDN/issues
Maybe @Lonk with his OpenVPN project would have ideas on this too?
We're not here for a long time - but we are here for a good time :)
Jersey/UK
Work & Ecommerce Advice: https://brandlight.org
Personal & Software Tips: https://marcusquinn.com -
@marcusquinn said in Why does Kutt use so many google services?:
@yusf Interesting idea! Maybe worth just suggesting it to the author that there would be interest in a server-side version: https://codeberg.org/nobody/LocalCDN/issues
Maybe @Lonk with his OpenVPN project would have ideas on this too?
I couldn't think of any more features to add aside from new protocols, but this would increase speed (especially important over VPN), and reduce tracking. I'd have to find a way to intercept and deliver "local" VPN Client packages / fonts / etc. I'll have to research how LocalCDN does it. I'm also going to start using LocalCDN, it's brilliant.
How do you find all of these amazing products?
-
I didn’t mean for it to be another Cloudron app. Instead I meant implementing it as a service layer directly in Cloudron.
-
@lonk been online as long as the internet
And, recently very much woke to the privacy issues when these behemoths behave like drunks in a brewery for their data-mining through so many browser trojans by proxy. -
@girish Would it be possible to just omit the relevant parts and serve the google font locally before building for cloudron?
-
@andreasdueren said in Why does Kutt use so many google services?:
@girish Would it be possible to just omit the relevant parts and serve the google font locally before building for cloudron?
If I understood well, the goal of Cloudron is to make easy life SysAdmin job via Docker by adding a thin layer; not to fork the project.
More in a laughing voice, I would say like they often say in the Open-Source Community; use your rights; fork it and code it as you want. While this is beautiful to say and to have the possibility to do; not everybody has the time and knowledge to rebuild apps and to maintain it and, for me; this is where Open Source Movement lack; they lack power of federation and inclusion; most of them will end by saying fork it; go away with my code and leave me alone than trying to work together.
-
@robi said in Why does Kutt use so many google services?:
spying services
do you also consider the JS trap ?
-
@JOduMonT for what reason?
-
@robi said in Why does Kutt use so many google services?:
@JOduMonT for what reason?
JS ping home such as API
-
@JOduMonT Define home for a self-hosted system serving up the JS. Also, which API, self-hosted or otherwise?
-
@andreasdueren I think maintaining upstream patches is out of scope for us (unless it's some serious temporary bug). Are you able to report this upstream? For example, https://github.com/thedevs-network/kutt/commit/4e672a8b51e741f0f276fab999d622dc5337ca88 removed GA, so maybe they are open to this.
-
@girish Understandable. Unfortunately it looks like the maintainers don't seem to be very interested in removing GA seeing these issues being open for a while now. Maybe I have to go back to yourls
-
@andreasdueren I missed the original post, but shall now look to move away from Kutt. Shame because it looks nice and works well, but I can't tolerate anything built around Google services.
Yourls works but is just ugly and dated (IMHO).
Looking at alternatives :
- https://github.com/shlinkio/shlink (Dockerfile √)
(wishlist https://forum.cloudron.io/topic/2325/shlink-modern-url-shortener?lang=en-GB) - https://github.com/muety/anchr (Dockerfile √)
- https://github.com/ldidry/lstu (Dockerfile √)
- https://github.com/urlhum/urlhum (Dockerfile √)
- https://github.com/steven-tey/dub (no Dockerfile)
(wishlist https://forum.cloudron.io/topic/7719/dub-an-open-source-bit-ly-alternative-for-url-redirection?lang=en-GB) - https://github.com/cmpct-io (no Dockerfile )
- https://github.com/origranot/reduced.to (no Dockerfile)
- https://github.com/webfuelcode/link2u (script)
- https://github.com/shlinkio/shlink (Dockerfile √)
-
I've generally solved that problem by using the LocalCDN browser extension which blocks such requests from any sites.
-
@andreasdueren said in Why does Kutt use so many google services?:
yourls
I prefer that anyway because you can customise the homepage of the domain
Kutt has a nicer UI, but I don't see the need for a nice UI for such a simple tool. I just need to be able to create shortlink and track how many clicks they get and YOURLS does that perfectly fine imho.
-
@timconsidine I'm currently looking more into shlink which ticks a lot of boxes. It looks like this could potentially run in a lamp stack if no one ports it for cloudron it seems
Edit: Seems to run well in a lamp stack. Now my only Problem is that there is no public facing UI and user accounts
-
@robi said in Why does Kutt use so many google services?:
@JOduMonT Define home for a self-hosted system serving up the JS. Also, which API, self-hosted or otherwise?
we might be lost in the translation/transmission
when I said ping home; I meant phone home to make a connection so if you don't localize your JS, the provider notice you (ping)otherwise it was just to raise awareness on JS such as Stallman did years ago and now https://openjsf.org do.
