At work I was asked by a different team how we can deal with bots, because someone in my team remembered that I knew how to do it.
I reluctantly suggested Anubis because I got shit for it last time, This is the URL https://anubis.techaro.lol/
This is the 2nd and last time I will ever recommend Anubis anywhere at work to deal with bots because of how unprofessional, un-serious and weird others perceive it.
The mascot being a ~10 year old “cutsie” anime cat girl is weird in a work setting.
I will never put myself in a situation again where I have to explain that it’s not weird to anyone again, same for that URL.
What is a professional looking open-source alternative to Anubis?
Edit: No I can’t just send my colleges here https://anubis.techaro.lol/docs/admin/botstopper The issue is they find the Mascot and domain weird, they will still run into both.
My Goal: Recommend a Open-Source bot protection tool
The Issue: When I send my coworkers to https://anubis.techaro.lol/docs/admin/botstopper they find the mascot and URL weird.
Result: They don’t see Anubis as a serious tool and turn away from it
What is a professional looking open-source alternative to Anubis?
I want to remind everyone to keep on topic. Disparaging people for whatever reason is not on topic.
If you see something problematic, please report rather than respond. Your comment in response will be nuked along with the original problem comment.
I get it that you want to be a worker with a good idea, but after that reaction, I would not give a fuck anymore about what this company needs.
I worked at ‘company’ once that felt bad because it used Blender, not an expensive 3D software, so they bought 3DsMax license only for it to lie down and being unused, but the boss ego was a bit less scratched by using Free stuff. Like those people are fucked up.
This is funny, I can imagine someone in corporate suited up and everything looking at a demo on a meeting room and the mascot on a huge screen. Honestly, I would have looked for a way to customise it or hide it somehow before showing it at work.
It’s like homophobia, but whimsyfunphobia
This is the 2nd and last time I will ever recommend Anubis anywhere at work to deal with bots because of how unprofessional, un-serious and weird others perceive it.
tell them its professional enough for kernel.org, qemu.org, the freedesktop gitlab server and several other serious software projects.
but I understand it. I just find tye priorities funny.
what kind of company is this? do you believe your work benefits the public? if yes, have a look at gandalf from nerdvpn, but I guess they’ll laugh just the same. if no, you are better off not recommending them effective bot blockers.
they see a mascot that dont like and then dont use that software because that? how unprofessional
The Issue: When I send my coworkers to https://anubis.techaro.lol/docs/admin/botstopper they find the mascot and URL weird.
You’ve decided without listening to the responses
Botstopper doesn’t have the .lol domain, and doesn’t use the anime cat girl splash
It’s not even expensive
You don’t have to tell your peers it is just a rebadged version of the same website, just say “look I’ve found another one that does the same thing but without the domain and splashscreen probs you complained about”
I install gimp on my work PC. Anubis isn’t weird enough.
The mascot is part of the repellent. It will repeal the tech and finance bros.
OP, anubis is not a catgirl. She is a jackalgirl.
Life is too short to be all serious all the time, love Anubis logo!
If you want serious and professional: Pay for it!
If you want it free, you get the anime girl.
This is an exclusive choice.
The type of folks who avoid Anubis because of the mascot don’t deserve good bot protection anyway. Its like reverse gate keeping, the corpo dorks filter themselves out.
I think people are right that the solution here isn’t to try a different project.
Instead of being confrontational about it, though, I’d recommend a different aproach.
evelyn: .lol 😜
you: I know! I know. The branding is pretty silly. But this really is the right tool for the task. Unesco and Wikimedia use it. And we can do our own branding for $50/month. 🤷
A lot can be fixed by just acknowledging people. They’re trying to evaluate something they don’t understand, and having a reaction. It’s not even unreasonable. The right thing to do is just acknowledge and move on.
Usually that’s all it takes. Don’t let yourself be embarrassed when you’re being reasonable. If they won’t move on, that’s the point where I start thinking about job applications somewhere else.
This is because you are mature, you came up with the mature response.
My response was basically something along those lines. But it’s still DOA, because that coworker now has to sell it to their team, and they won’t.
Another team asked for your input, and you gave your input. If they don’t want to take your input then what does it matter?
Lost opportunity for the open source community
How? Having bad people badding about your stuff is bad overall.
Well you can pay 50 USD / month to remove the anime jackal girl and apply your own branding. I think its a fair system: hobby & FOSS projects don’t have to mind being cringe and profit-oriented operations that need to look professional can spare some of their profit for this cool service.
Kinda a genius way to deliver a free service to individuals but force companies to pay for it. Just bung some really cringe pic there…
That doesn’t really solve the problem. The problem arises when he presents the product. It’s a very unserious and unprofessional image that professionals see immediately when OP shows them the tool, which causes the project not to be taken seriously. Which is fine, because it’s not really a professional product, and isn’t trying to be. OP should probably just stop trying to present it as such. Any company is going to want something more common with funding and technical support anyway. Most likely what just about everyone else uses (Cloudflare).
This is quite simply solved by using in your presentation a site that already rebrands Anubis.
Explain the business strategy
Open-Source sadly shooting itself in the foot again because of hills they choose to die on.
Alternately, Super Serious humourless douchebags pretending to be All Grown Up and overlooking powerful functionality because they don’t like the picture on the box.
Some people need to get over their obsession with appearance and face.
The picture on the box matters, its absurd thinking it doesn’t
Reducto absurdum: Would you buy a car with a big dick and balls for a logo, but you can pay extra to have it removed?
I mean, I’d look at the specs first. Because it’s just a logo. Show me the numbers that actually matter.
That said, there are imagery that would give me pause, obviously. I suspect we’d just draw the line in very different places.
If it harms nobody, let people have fun.
I am not the problem, I don’t care about the mascot.
It’s incorporating it at work that is the issue.
Yes you might buy a car with a dick and balls logo for personal use, but would you try to convince your managers to buy it for the company?
More like…convince the managers to use the car for free with dick and balls logo or pay for it to have another logo?! If the car does what it should and is better than the alternatives, a good manager would probably pay up ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
I might, if the specs were good.
Would you buy a car with a big dick and balls for a logo, but you can pay extra to have it removed?
Have you ever seen corporate branded truck nuts? Because I have, and those companies paid to add it in.
Well, only if you assume the end goal is to make profit from the various businesses out there.
Is it really shooting itself in the foot, though? There are plenty of FOSS projects that companies benefit from and never contribute back to, either monetarily, or in the form of writing code. They provide an easy option to make it look more professional while helping to support the project, and you could always fork it and do what you need to with your fork. The idea that developers should do a thankless job to maintain their software in a way that complies with random corporate policies in order to be more widely adopted strikes me as setting up devs to burn out and crash from having all the joy ground out of their projects for them.
UNESCO, the Wikimedia foundation and other major organizations have already implemented it and gotten onboard, so I would suggest your coworkers are being a bit foolish in completely disregarding it because of a single mascot image that has a clear option to replace. The Dev is just saving themselves aggravation from people that were going to make endless demands of them, but most likely balk at actually supporting the project to enable features that only matter to their organization, but not to the Dev themselves or others.
Anubis provides a non-cutesy version. The only one dying on a hill here is you guys refusing to consider it.
finger touch grep awk cat pip, Red Hat…
Unix. GNU.
Dumb jokes and weird branding kinda comes with the package. People have fun.
I think ‘get over it’ is a pretty reasonable take, overall.
It’s not cringe :(
As a millennial parent to teenage girls who eat this shit up, IMO, it is very cringe.
Millenials are cringe.
I don’t really care. Grown-ass men should not be incorporating underage-appearing anime catgirls in…anything. Ever. It’s weird as shit.
Why do you see an underage girl and immediately make it sexual
…you do understand the very obvious connection between anime catgirls and porn, right?
Literally something that only someone who watches a lot of anime porn would say… Most people don’t instantly make that connection actually. Do your daughters?
being cringe
https://anubis.techaro.lol/docs/admin/botstopper That URL has all the same issues I mention in my post
If I could send them to eg. botstopper.com where there is no mascot to be found, then that would be a solution.
I feel like you didn’t understand what they are saying. That is the page of their monetization policy, not a demo.
Edit: you don’t like their branding and feel weird about linking there? Make a presentation then.
Or download the .webp
People shouldn’t have to jump through that many hoops to recommend something, that’s ridiculous
People shouldn’t have to jump through that many hoops to recommend something, that’s ridiculous
True, but only for a commercial offering.
False, for free or open source software. Makemkv is the absolute best tool for ripping DVDs and bluerays. It requires being compiled from source in order to be used for free. Anubis charges 50/month to change the branding. These both serve the same purpose; a mild speedbump to encourage paying for the work of the developer.
Anubis’ direct competitor will straight up hold your business hostage and blackmail your company for money when they feel like they can get away with it.
The ‘ridiculous hoops to jump through’ are there for the developers benefit, and are incredibly mild compared to most every other commercial offering. I just don’t see why it matters so much that anubis must change in this way.
Removed by mod
Either you are a creep or otherwise come off as creepy due to Audhd things
That is one hell of a leap. Maybe don’t try to diagnose people on the internet?
The reaction you are describing is not reasonable
No, it is. Anubis being unprofessional is by design. It’s run by one person, as a hobby, as of last year. When you aren’t reliant on profit in order to run a project you are able to adjust your priorities away from ‘money at any cost’.
Why the fuck is the AuDHD drive by audience taking potshot in a sentence equating it with creepiness and unwashed-ness?
Did one of us touch you in a bad spot or something else wrong with you?
Jeeeze I do not even begin to know how to respond to what you just wrote.
You completely misread the situation. Nowhere did I ever say I came across as a creep, I’ve never had that in my life.
Then reply to the entire rest of their message where they said they’re assuming you being a creep isn’t the case…?
As I said, I presume the latter. Hence the blurb.
I don’t know what is happening any more
Removed by mod
deleted by creator
