These are the kind of reactions I get when I recommend Anubis to deal with bots at work, what alternatives are there?

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social⁩ to ⁨selfhosted@lemmy.world⁩

https://media.piefed.social/posts/FA/ho/FAhoxInnTfvWEGZ.png

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.

image
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?

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Comments

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Guiorgy@lemmy.ml ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I’ve also seen some sites use POWBlock, though, don’t know anything about it.

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fdnomad@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

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- magnue@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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…
  
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- artyom@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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).
  
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  - Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Open-Source sadly shooting itself in the foot again because of hills they choose to die on.
    
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  - lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    This is quite simply solved by using in your presentation a site that already rebrands Anubis.
    
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  - sem@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Explain the business strategy
    
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- RickyRigatoni@piefed.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  It’s not cringe :(
  
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  - lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    As a millennial parent to teenage girls who eat this shit up, IMO, it is very cringe.
    
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- Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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.
  
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  - Gladaed@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I feel like you didn’t understand what they are saying. That is the page of their monetization policy, not a demo.
    
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  - derpgon@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I am pretty sure the software is self hosted. So what is the issue?
    
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  - i_am_not_a_robot@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    github.com/TecharoHQ/anubis/…/botstopper.mdx
    
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- veniasilente@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  being cringe
  
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NoLemurs@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

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- warm@kbin.earth ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  This is because you are mature, you came up with the mature response.
  
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- Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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.
  
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  - starshipwinepineapple@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    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?
    
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MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Anubis is not out to make money, as such it has absolutely no obligation to try to appeal to corpos who would use it without contributing back to it.

Either your coworkers have to get over their hangups (have they not noticed that some of the best software that exists is made by furries?) or you’ll have to re-implement something yourselves.

Anubis is open source. You COULD fork it and modify it for your own purposes.

If your coworkers can’t separate what a piece of software is able to do from how it is branded, that’s their problem.

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- rbos@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Xe Xaio is trying to self fund to replace their day job, so i wouldn’t say there’s no money motivation involved.
  
  It was a slightly uphill battle to get my organization to adopt it for similar reasons but we got there with the branding, and we love botstopper. I put some effort into letting them know just how much it’s blocking.
  
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  - DaGeek247@fedia.io ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Yeah, but Xe Xaio also has a full time job that is funding things right now. There's room for priorities other than profit, such as cute furry art. Not everything has to be about money.
    
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- Bananskal@nord.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  It’s also OP’s problem though, clearly.
  
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mycodesucks@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
“Look, we don’t need to use Photoshop for our shop. There’s an open source option that matches our use case perfect.”

“What’s it called?”

“Gnu Image Manipulation Program.”

“That’s an awfully long name. They should have a shorter one that’s less of a mouthful to say.”

“…they do not.”

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- Broadfern@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Krita’s pretty close, but unfortunately not quite as close as the program our friend Wilber represents :’)
  
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- Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Strawman
  
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  - wholookshere@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I dunno, that was more of a joke to me?
    
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  - mycodesucks@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Image
    
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- lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  GIMP blows anyway.
  
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cadey@pony.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
@Ek-Hou-Van-Braai Hi, tomska's law is in play and I have been linked this thread. I am the Anubis dev. I am having my agent work on a soulless generic corporate website for BotStopper with one of the most painfully boring layouts imaginable, including a random WebGL effect on the homepage for no reason.
I couldn't get a .com so I hope the corporate drones you work with will not balk at the sheer horror of a .net domain.
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- 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  That’s fine and all, but this version should cost money. Not as much as cloudflare, so corpos go for if, but definitely more than enough to fund you.
  
  If they want free, they can use the anime .lol cat girl. If that’s “too much” for them, then they can pay for the generic .net version.
  
  That’s my opinion, at least.
  
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  - Feathercrown@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    This is actually a good idea
    
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- SleepyPie@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Charge money for a version that literally just takes the anime girl out 🤣
  
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  - cadey@pony.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    @SleepyPie That's the entire product pitch for BotStopper: Anubis post waifu-ectomy
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- egrets@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Just wanted to chime in and say that OP’s experience is exactly how it would go down at my workplace too, despite the deluge of downvotes they’re getting, and I also likely would have looked at alternatives instead of proposing it, for the sake of my professional reputation. I think it’s likely true for a ton of people.
  
  That’s not to say that people aren’t being over-serious if they see the original branding and balk at it, but that’s out of OP’s hands.
  
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- Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  .net is perfectly fine, and C - Suites won’t frown at it.
  
  Thanks,
  
  Plain and boring sounds great, I’d much rather see us using Open-Source tools than just turn to cloudflare or something, these changes would make it possible for me and others to push for this at work.
  
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  - cadey@pony.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    @Ek-Hou-Van-Braai I have made https://botstopper.net/. It is vibecoded as a stylistic choice. Everything in docs/ is copied from the BotStopper repo but with some information that would give attakcers hints deleted.
    Enjoy the utter lack of whimsy.
    As an aside, please DM me somehow. I have feedback to give about your post.
    Attachment: botstopper.net ↗
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  - freeman@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    So your outfit is not going to notice that it says " Built by the creators of Anubis" on the page? They are not going to ~~google~~ research what this solution is and figure out it’s the same unprofessional project you recommended last time? And your guys work government projects?
    
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gravitywell@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

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- flango@lemmy.eco.br ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Let’s expand this thought: we should put anime girls everywhere in order to filter corpo dorks. Making something look “silly” is actually a great ideia to shit on those “serious companies”.
  
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  - Bytemeister@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Say what you will about having an anime girl wrap on your car, but everyone sees you and gives you plenty of space on the road.
    
    I might mock the method, but I can’t argue with the results.
    
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  - DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    You seem to have rediscovered why some open source projects use names like GIMP. 🤣
    
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- bss03@infosec.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  It’s Free Software; if they want to change the branding, they can fork it. I say fuck the haters of .lol and anime catgirls.
  
  Corpos might get to use our work gratis (since that’s the only way we can make it libre for everyone), but we don’t have to cater to them.
  
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- HexaBack@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  came here to say just that
  
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Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I also find the logo weird. They call it Anubis, but use an anime girl instead of a sexy, shirtless jackal man like Neferu.

Image

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sealhaslupus@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
tell them to grow up

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- Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Great career move, run around telling people to grow up.
  
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  - BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Being assertive IS important in your career. Your colleagues are the unprofessional ones here. I would not tolerate someone sending me “lol” in a professional context and would quickly correct that behaviour.
    
    A factual reply is all thats needed “you asked for a solution, this is the solution. Please do not be dismissive or rude. If you want an alternative please look for yourself, just expect the cost to be significantly higher. Otherwise I’m happy to discuss any concerns which are easily addressed such as branding”.
    
    There is a huge difference between being rude and beibg assertive. They’re clearly being rude. You need to be assertive in response.
    
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  - sealhaslupus@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    depends on what kind of relationship you have with your colleagues.
    
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- orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Grow up and accept the paedophyllic representation of a girl made to appease incel neckbeards into defending it.
  
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  - LuceVendemiaire@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    holy shit are we already stepping down to “the creator is a pedo for liking anime”?
    
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anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I imagine Anubis looking like that is because professional settings really should sponsor when using open source.
anubis.techaro.lol/docs/admin/botstopper/
github.com/sponsors/Xe
Image

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- Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  That URL has all the same issues I mention in my post
  
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  - anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    You can always contact techaro.lol and ask if they’re willing to setup a secondary domain for you.
    
    Or you can use others endorsements of the product to give it weight.
    "The Linux Foundation uses Anubis to protect git.kernel.org and lore.kernel.org and seem very satisfied with the result.
    For the low cost of 50USD/Month we get a custom branded version of it.
    Image
    
    …kernel.org/…/1bb84190-f207-4adc-ac0e-8eb87a8a60f…"
    
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BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Look, you suggested software that does the job. The issue is not the software, its that your colleagues are being dismissive and disrespectful.

Instead of looking for other alternatives, you need to be more assertive in your job and career. Tell them you offered an option that does the job and if they have better options its on them to offer them. And also tell them you dont appreciate “lol” as a response to a work suggestion.

Scrambling to find an alternative because your work colleagues are too immature or arrogant to get past a animal character really doea not reflect well on you. Instead you can tell them the company can pay to and have their own branding, or they can go with a more expensive option like cloudflare, just because b they can’t be bothered to engage with the cheaper option.

But whatever you do, do not accept this dismissive treatment by your colleagues. You’re just setting the standard that they can just laugh at you and insult you. That is the unprofessional behaviour by them, not some projects mascot. Do not tolerate that BS.

You’ve been perfectly reasonable being argumentative with people here. Apply that attitude to your colleagues who are the real issue.

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- shifting9810@lemmy.mrpostman.ch ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  And also tell them you dont appreciate “lol” as a response to a work suggestion.
  
  Not sure if you’re joking but the answer isn’t “lol” it’s “.lol?” because the tld of the website ends in lol (anubis.techaro.lol)
  
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  - SatyrSack@quokk.au ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    All these comments about the URL being unprofessional or whatever, and I am just now realizing what they mean by that. I saw anubis.techaro.lol and didn’t get what about that was unprofessional. Professional tools can be named after mythological beings, etc. It wasn’t until seeing your comment here that I realized lol may seem unprofessional or something.
    
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- verstra@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I don’t think you understand the problem.
  
  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.
  
  To some people, anubis is weird, there is no changing that. It does the job, the mascot can be changed by paying, but the project itself is weird to some people. Such person is asking, is there an alternative. You cannot just say “push back that is not weird”.
  
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  - Azzu@leminal.space ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    You can, though.
    
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Soatok@pawb.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
If you want serious and professional: Pay for it!

If you want it free, you get the anime girl.

This is an exclusive choice.

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- cadekat@pawb.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Isn’t it MIT? Can’t you just… Change the image?
  
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  - hasnep@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Yep, or you can pay for the commercial version that has that feature built in. It’s up to you if you want to do the right thing or not.
    
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  - Excrubulent@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Yeah but you need to sell that solution to the team before you’ve swapped the image, and that’s not their absolute favourite thing. It only meets 99% of their criteria.
    
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- Ajen@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  This is brilliant.
  
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thanksforallthefish@literature.cafe ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

The Issue: When I send my coworkers to anubis.techaro.lol/docs/admin/botstopper they find the mascot and URL weird.

You’ve decided without listening to the responses

botstopper.net

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”

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- ikidd@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  This was literally just set up in response to this post. Check out the posts earlier from @Xe about 16 hours before yours.
  
  a.lemmy.dbzer0.com/lemmy.dbzer0.com/…/28609525
  
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veniasilente@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

2026

mistrusting a firewall because of a changeable anime catgirl when there’s technofascist executing and leading technofascism on IT all abroad

Your teammates are stupid (not to mention they are probably projecting their own fetishes, denialists and negationists are like that) and they deserve to be derided. Changing the logo of a program these days is, like, two lines in a script.

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LuceVendemiaire@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
the insane smugness and inability to comprehend that money isnt everything for the creator is astounding “Waaahhh Anubis isn’t gonna get my money cus they chose to look UNPROFESSIONAL”

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- LodeMike@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  MBAs love getting ripped off.
  
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  - LuceVendemiaire@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    oh they do want all the shit anubis and other foss projects offers which is why they keep trying to browbeat and bully them whenever they arent soulless slop, see the comment thread elsewhere in this post where a bunch of fucks keep jerking off to their idea of replacing the catgirl with a grey square or something so that muh MaRkEt can get over itself and ~~take over~~ properly compensate the project
    
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  - Buckshot@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I’ve been explicitly told not to use any open source for a project. I don’t even know what language I’d write it in. We ended up not even quoting for it in the end.
    
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LodeMike@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
There is a debranded version you can pay for

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diminou@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Look buddy I understand that URL has the same issue you mention in your post but it is the official Anubis URL.

Thus if you really want to be professional you load up the URL past the anime girl, organize a meeting and share your screen.

Tell them what it is and what it is for.

Explain what is opensource and the fact that this is free only if they accept that anime girl. Otherwise it’ll be 50 bucks and they can put their own ai designed logo instead.

If they are still acting like childs treat them like childs. Recenter the meeting on what it is for. Do a proof of concept. I don’t know, do something instead of stating that the official website is not how you would like it to be ?

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- Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  That is not always possible, or worth the fight.
  
  Even if I was willing to go through all of that, not everyone is, so what happens is more people turn to cloudflare instead of something Foss
  
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  - neatchee@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Sounds like you work with a bunch of short-sighted, judgemental simpletons who cannot look past initial aesthetics for a product that has nothing to do with aesthetics.
    
    Tbh I would run far the fuck away from that company if they can’t be bothered to sit down for a meeting where you explain that it’s an open-source project run by an extremely small team of nerds and that there is a commercial product available without the branding issues.
    
    Everything you’re describing about your employer/coworkers gives me giant red-flag warnings regarding their decision making process.
    
    Time to start looking for a new employer, or accept that they’re idiots and next time they ask about bots tell them “I’ve tried explaining this already but you dismissed me for silly reasons, so go pay for CloudFlare and stop bothering me”.
    
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curbstickle_lw@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

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OrganicMustard@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
If the UNESCO and Wikimedia websites can use it, so does your company. Not an issue of the software, grow up.

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mlg@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
“You can change the logo bruh”

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esc@piefed.social@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Your work environment is bad if they are so easily distracted by branding and can’t deal with ‘unporfessional’ and ‘weird’ things.

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SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It’s like homophobia, but whimsyfunphobia

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CrazyLikeGollum@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Anubis is open source under the MIT license. If the branding is an issue, fork it, change the branding, call it good.

The MIT license makes it, effectively, a whitebox solution. You can change the branding to whatever you want it to be.

If your colleagues are people of a technical inclination they should understand that. If they don’t I would question their competence and literacy. If they’re not technical in nature I would question why any such proposal is reaching their desk without having first been rebranded, implemented in a test environment, thouroughly tested, and then (and only then) being presented as a proof of concept.

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Shadow_Glider@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
https://codeberg.org/wheresalice/go-away Even if you didn’t have the issues with branding, this is just generally better than Anubis.

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slazer2au@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Botstopper.

Litterly the same thing but you can customise the image.

anubis.techaro.lol/docs/admin/botstopper

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ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
The mascot is part of the repellent. It will repeal the tech and finance bros.

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Simon_Shitewood@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Sounds like you need to explain the difference between a serious tool and a serious looking tool. They can frump about it being weird but it is the foss option.

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maxihuenu@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
they see a mascot that dont like and then dont use that software because that? how unprofessional

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oyzmo@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Life is too short to be all serious all the time, love Anubis logo!

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BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Idk my last workplace was full of nerds who appreciated the pedigree of anubus’ creator. We used it to protect our production sites without even changing the branding. If I were in your place I would find it very hard to resist bringing up the amount of furries in tech.

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