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.
Realistically your best option is a CDN with some layer of bot detection and blocking. Cloudflare is of course the most popular choice, https://bunny.net/ might also work but I haven’t tried their advanced Shield level so not sure how good it is.
Some commercial advanced firewall / WAF might also be an option. Seems most of them has Bot mitigation features, but I haven’t tried their never personally tried anything like that.
https://codeberg.org/wheresalice/go-away
Even if you didn’t have the issues with branding, this is just generally better than Anubis.You immediately trying to put an age on the mascot is totally not weird, either.
Why would anyone care what the domain name or the mascot for a tool is, if it does the job?
OP is relaying an opinion they got from multiple people and frankly an expected one. You got weirdly mad at them for it.
Their colleague posted a laughing emoji, I think they are not trying enough. They are also attacking the mascot themselves, which conveys they don’t want to use the tool themselves either and are just looking for validation.
They said they already went through this once before. Also you assume that “it’s weird” is some kind of vicious attack but it’s not.
If a random visitor visits your website and they see a weird anime girl drawing talking about security, what is the chance of them just bouncing away afraid that it is a virus or an unsafe website? I’d say it’s definitely higher than 0%.
random visitor visits your website and they see a weird anime girl drawing talking about security, what is the chance of them just bouncing away afraid that it is a virus or an unsafe website?
Very high. And they’d be completely wrong in doing so.
Let’s not pretend that it’s the furries fault that everyone discounts their work because of how they present themselves, especially for things they are giving out for free.
Pay for the unbranded version, or set it up and replace the image with whatever you want. It’s open source and is trivial just to replace the image. I see it with different images all the time on other sites. Name and other branding is a little more work to replace, but can be done and that’s what the paid version provides.
Mods, I’m gonna argue rule 3 here. This is not related to self-hosting rather enterprise level sysadmin services and does not belong.
This is a popular self hosted tool.
I am asking for a alternative open source self hosted tool, and elaborate why I’m asking it. It’s on topic.
Hek I’ll even build it into my k8s cluster if a good option exists, and ideally at work too.
There is no differentiation around “who” in self-hosting. I would even say it should be encouraged to have companies support open-source tools like Anubis, especially financially.
If you want to start a meta discussion about it go for it, but I won’t remove this discussion just because a business is involved. Especially considering many of us self-host for our own personal businesses as well, it would seem pretty arbitrary to me.
There’s a HUGE difference between the enterprise/government space than small business. I agree the line isnt commercial, but also thems (enterprise/gov) gotta be the ones to support projects.
There are plenty of small businesses that use “enterprise” as well, and have wonderfully descriptive forms like “small to medium enterprise” and my absolute favorite - “micro enterprise”, for organizations with (generally) under 10 people.
Again, I support there being a meta discussion about this so the community can have a consensus, but we aren’t doing that in this thread.
Enterprise is a size of the oruchasing company, not the quality of software.
See comment you replied to about “size” and “enterprise”. At no point did I comment on quality.
My comment was this thread is not the place for this discussion.
Sorry, then I have no idea what a ‘micron enterprise’ is. If its a size of company, than a 10 person corporation would be a small/medium business?
My comment was this thread is not the place for this discussion.
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.
They dismiss it because it’s seems weird.
It’s not a fight worth fighting for me at work. Got to pick your battles
So they dismiss it because of looks, but hey, do tell, do they support technofascism tools because of how they perform?
Yeah that’s fair, it’s not worth throwing your lot in with someone they deem as “weird” and forever be the weird guy if they don’t end up using the tool. Ridiculous that they’re turning down legitimate options because of (fixable) aesthetics
Then what’s the point of this post?
So many unhelpful responses here… This is obviously a problem in some professional environments. Same problem with Gimp…
Sorry OP, you’re probably stuck with Cloudflare.
Thanks yea I see there are some reasonable people here in the comments.
Nobody has suggested a solution to my problem, most responses just say that my coworkers need to grow up, or that I need to fight harder at work or some BS.
None of that address the Issue.
Yes they do solve your issue, just not in the way you wanted.
Sounds like you need to do some growing up, too. Most of the time in the real world, imperfect answers are your only viable answers.
It has been an upsetting thread to read; in frustrated on your behalf OP. I think many commenters here have not worked in the kind of environment you’re describing, and “get another job” is deeply unhelpful advice.
I’m with you OP. I’m surprised by the lack of rationality in this thread.
Yes, a more professional looking solution would benefit all parties, especially if the developer wants supporters.
First impressions matter. If anything about the first impression is polarizing, potential users and supporters of the project will be lost. Your coworkers’ reactions have proven that the solution could be marketed better. It’s not your job to hard sell your coworkers on furries and .lol domains.
Some comments on here have been ridiculous, someone literally said that I should be fine bringing furriers up at work and got lots of upvotes. I hope they’re trolling and haven’t completely lost touch with reality.
Something being perfectly fine and acceptable, doesn’t make it okay at work.
Firstly, sorry you’re having this problem and sorry the responses here have been nearly universally unhelpful and aggressive. This is a pretty perfect case study of what I don’t like about the fediverse. There’s a lot to like about this place but what drives me nuts is the unhinged and reality-divorced types who cannot understand something so simple as normal people thinking things are weird. Half the respondents here think you should scream at your coworkers about this and/or quit. You asked an incredibly reasonable and relatable question and mostly got shat on for it. Just wanted to say that someone sees how ridiculous it is, not everyone here is lost completely in their own (hateful) world. Sorry I don’t have a solution for you.
the unhinged and reality-divorced types who cannot understand something so simple as normal people thinking things are weird. Half the respondents here think you should scream at your coworkers
I’ve recommended the ploopy knob to coworkers before. I was in government work at the time. My current employer uses and recommends software called “keep ass”. This is a user problem first, and a software/branding problem a distant second. The comments here reflect that.
Yes, software developers put out things that are counterculture. Yes, that can make working with them more difficult than it might otherwise be.
No, you should not blame the software developer for this.
If the branding causes too many issues, don’t use it. The branding is there because the developer wants it there, and wants to have the type of customers that enjoy it, or can at least look past it. Everybody else being filtered out is a good thing.
I was just taking issue with the responses ignoring the context given, and rudely. If I say I can’t use something and why (and that why is other people’s opinions) it’s super unhelpful to angrily tell me why those other people are wrong. It’s irrelevant if they’re wrong or not. I think I could’ve overlooked whether it is relevant or not honestly, but comment after comment saying it, many of them with a shitty tone, is why I commented.
I was just taking issue with the responses ignoring the context given, and rudely.
Yup. The fediverse is usually better than reddit but it looks like today several people got up and chose angry instead of helpful. It happens for sure. I do love how helpful some of these have been though. Lots of good advice among the arguments at least.
Yeah now that I look back there are more than like 3 people not mad/rude about it.
Getting mad is kinda just what social media does. If you just take a chill pill its a fun problem!
Personally wouldn’t be an issue for me: I’d present anubis to my boss, he’d make fun of both the mascot and me, I’d laugh it off and explain how we can get rid the awoo girl.
I’m fine with being known as a weirdo tho, but in a more cutthroat corporate environment that kind of thing weighs you down carrier-wise so I get it.
Getting mad is kinda just what social media does
I would say it’s what the Internet does. Post a question on stack overflow and you’ll get the meanest responses each one telling you you’re stupider than the last. Same vibes in this thread.
Thank you, I appreciate that.
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.
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.
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”.
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.
You seem to have rediscovered why some open source projects use names like GIMP. 🤣
came here to say just that
I understand you are just looking for an easy open source project that solves your issue, but it seems fairly obvious to me that your real issue here is that you are not willing to push for your teammates to accept that it is a valid service even if branded a bit oddly.
You should go for the $50 professional tier and get your team to accept that as valid by respectfully asserting yourself instead of wetnoodling and trying to get a different project that requires less assertiveness on your part.
Good luck with your team.
I have tried twice to push it, and both times I’ve gotten weird reactions because of the branding.
It’s not worth it for me to do that again, I wish Anubis had a paid version with a different domain and no cutsie anime girl branding. That would make it significantly easier to sell to me colleagues
I think the developer might benefit hearing that point of view. A separate website that only lists the paid tier without displaying the anime branding seems beneficial for them. You could suggest it to them.
That would solve all my problems.
You say you have tried to convince them twice. How have you tried to pitch it so far? Like, give us a word for word and we may be able to help you workshop it.
I am not jumping thought hoops at work to fight this battle at work.
IMO, Anubis is no longer a tool I will recommend at work until there is a URL I can point people to without that branding, it being paid is not a issue, work will throw thousands of Euro’s at the issue if they have to. But I will never risk that mascot coming up in a meeting again.
Then don’t recommend it to others. Keep being ashamed of the cute, anime-style picture just because everyone else is embarrassed by it. But that’s not how the world’s problems get solved.
It sounds like you are still just throwing a fit over the fact that the Anubis team has set the logo as what it is.
New suggestion:
Write your own damn anti-bot code.
If they cannot stay professional, be the one who stays professional.
Sure, but at the end of the day Anubis will not be used, because of its branding.
Then point out that their way of thinking is unprofessional without saying so directly. That’s what I would do, at least.
There is a way to use something like Anubis without having to deal with the image. But you need to handle it professionally.
Even after doing that, Anubis will not get used. I am in the minority.
Then let happen what needs to happen. The company does not have a simple and cheap solution for fighting bots. Maybe it is better they don’t have such protection.
The mascot is part of the repellent. It will repeal the tech and finance bros.
@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.
.net is perfectly fine, and C-Suites won’t frown at it.
Thanks for this, I really want to integrate your tool,
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.
@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.
This is truly horrible, amazing work.
Excellently corporate, I can already hear the MBAs salivating over how blandly cookie-cutter it is.
An AI agent making a frontend for a bot stopping tool in order to appease corporate drones.
It’s robots all the way down!
@cadey @Ek-Hou-Van-Braai Normally I’d frown at AI usage/vibecoding, but this is delightful trolling of the OP and I absolutely love it.
How is this trolling me? it’s literally what I was looking for.
@Ek-Hou-Van-Braai Yes, your 3,000 comments on here have made it abundantly clear what you’re looking for.
Nice. And you made sure to mention Anubis, but without it being a clickable link.
Perfect for many of the fun-policing prudes I’ve worked with. (They will never ever actually google a keyword themselves.)
You are a fucking genius.
This is… beautifully without any soul or personality. Its so fitting.
Amazing thank you, this is now something I can champion at work without risking reactions that I’ve gotten in the past.
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
googleresearch what this solution is and figure out it’s the same unprofessional project you recommended last time? And your guys work government projects?First rule of government funding: don’t ask where anything (like funding) comes from.
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.
Charge money for a version that literally just takes the mascot out 🤣
@SleepyPie That’s the entire product pitch for BotStopper: Anubis post waifu-ectomy
That’s fine and all, but this version should cost money. Not as much as cloudflare, so corpos go for it, 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.
This is actually a good idea
As others said, the logo thing is solvable, for the domain you can explain that it’s cheaper than com or net.
What URL do I send my coworkers/management to where they don’t run into that logo?
That’s the neat part. You don’t. If they can’t get past the branding, that’s their problem.
Trying to force the issue makes it into anubis’ problem, which is a dick move for free software.
