free software resistance

 the cost of computing freedom is eternal vigilance

### a-tale-of-neocities *originally posted:* jan 2025 neocities has been fucking over tor users for about a week. lets see if i can edit this page to to give you the details... yes, i was able. it may not be all bad, but im definitely looking at alternatives. if neocities continues working, this may turn into the secondary website. first of all, lets talk about transparency. the most recent blog post is from 2022. it sucks pretty hard that whatever was done- and i dont think its possible for this to happen accidentally, but im not ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN it was anyones deliberate fault- but nothing has been said in years. also the contact page was affected. not that in my experience, the contact page is terribly useful. ive given money to neocities- for years at a time. i was interested in the bitcoin lifetime membership. the free options are pretty good. and when it comes to free hosting, i havent known a better option than neocities. not in years. to give you an idea, my next guess for free hosting would be- codeberg. with that said, i would never endorse or recommend a host that blocked tor users. for the past week or so, neocities APPEARS to have done just this. at least- and this is worth mentioning- at least it was possible to VIEW pages on neocities. including the blog. not including profiles. it was nearly impossible (a few nodes may have slipped through) to login for a week. i managed a couple of times. most of the time, it was not possible to even view any pages that have contact info or login options- meaning the main neocities page and the profiles. lets talk about what would justify this in my opinion. if someone was ddosing those pages and the relevant nodes (right, all of the ones that might get used) were blocked- id understand. i THINK transparency on the blog wouldve helped, though getting only that wrong is something i could understand. because there is no transparency, facts can only be gleaned from site behaviour. and since there was no transparency, i could only guess if this would become a regular thing, or if it was temporary. after years of using neocities, this absolutely shakes my trust. if it was for a day or two, id probably dismiss it. it was for closer to, if not more than, a week. i didnt note the date it started, because i didnt expect it to last this long. a little transparency would go a long way, but tbh neocities is not really good about this sort of thing. i already have a more tor-friendly host. its nothing id recommend to you, because one of the strengths of neocities is their beginner-friendly and free options. im no beginner when it comes to websites, but i still found neocites good for years. i havent written it off entirely, but unless this never happens again, or something gets resolved that isnt, im unlikely to ever recommend it again. to be honest, if you want something tor-friendly, youre better off running an onion service elsewhere. ive done that before. its mostly a matter of installing tor, setting up a server like apache or nginx or openbsd httpd, and then making a few changes (a few lines will do) to openbsd httpd.conf. you uncomment a couple lines in torrc and youre ready to host. you dont even have to mess with the router settings. but i have no problem with people using neocities if it continues to work with tor users. i wish i knew what the hell happened this week, but i spent it migrating and merging this website with my local filesystem. good luck. and i may post here again, it really depends. license: 0-clause bsd ``` # 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 # # Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any # purpose with or without fee is hereby granted. # # THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES # WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF # MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR # ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES # WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN # ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF # OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE. ``` => https://freesoftwareresistance.neocities.org