safing-web/_publications/2021-03-06-progress-update-february.md

category	layout	title	date	author	custom_thumbnail_name	progress_update	cards
blog	blog	#008 - Progress Update February	2021-03-06	David	progress-update	true	done in_progress postponed discarded title description team projects progress Create Business Model Page Make it easy to understand how we make money. Clarify all details on a dedicated sub-page, which should be accessible both from the About page and the footer. David Luke Website type text h5 A Big Pain Point Is Now Resolved type text p In the last years, time and time again, people got super confused about our business model. The blame is definitely on us, since we marketed free software while listing "Pricing" as one of the main entries in the top navbar. As a result we falsely communicated a paradox: Free but Not Free. type text p The first step to resolve this was to restructure our website, which happened in January: We focused on the Portmaster and hid most of the SPN, including the "Pricing" in the top navbar. Now the confusion was gone, but we did not cleary show how we make money. With our newest sub-page, this has now been resolved. type text href a Look at Safing's Business Model Cycle https://safing.io/business-model/ title description projects team progress Stabilize the Network After v0.1, focus on stabilizing the typical issues that arise with early software. Fix bugs, improve performance & stability. Detect failures in the network and react accordingly. Deliver to more and more pre-orders as the network matures. SPN Daniel type text h5 Anomaly Detection Evaluation Complete type text p In February we evaluated different anomaly detection algorithms, one of them coming from the European Space Agency. We are happy to have completed the evaluation stage and have found that it makes most sense to implement this after the SPN has progressed more. As such, we are wrapping up this aspect and re-shifting our focus on advancing the SPN. Finishing this evaluation also allowed us to conclude our ESA Business Incubation. type text href a Look at ESA-BIC and our other influences https://safing.io/ownership/#influences title description team projects progress Polish UI Design From a design perspective, the new User Interface was simply the minimal viable product. Go through each page and element in order to bring it up to speed with the concept design. Luke Patrick Portmaster type text h5 Network Monitor Got Polished, Lots of Small Fixes type text p The new UI was a big step sure, but it is still off from the concept design. Luke is spending a good amount of time to tackle and polish each sub-design individually. This month Patrick fixed a lot of smaller UI bugs, and the network monitor got a face-lift from Luke. The new eye-candy is already live for you to enjoy. type text href a Download the Portmaster https://safing.io/download/ title description team projects progress Define Next Marketing Steps Since two vital requirements were completed, (1) re-shifting communication towards the Portmaster and (2) its documentation, now focus on spreading the word again. Define the next steps and keep everyone in the loop. Raphael David Marketing type text h5 Main Chunk Snoozed to March type text p Though we had a lot of other stuff going on in February, we did not completely ignore this area. Some talks already happened which might bear fruit in the coming months. But in terms of creating a proper concept for the next steps, the main chunk of that will happen in March. Stay tuned. title description team projects progress Docs: Add Fundamental Guides Describe some basics such as (un)installation, operating system compatibility, troubleshooting, how to contribute, etc... Deprecate the GitHub Wiki. Flesh out the scope and details as you go. Daniel David Website type text h5 Contribution And Installation Guide Have Arrived type text p Our previous installation guide lived on GitHub, but we migrated it over to the docs since we rather want to host our docs independently. Along with the migration we finetuned the guide and also created a contribution guide which describes how to best support us at our current stage. type text h5 Settings Reference and DNS Configuration Incoming type text p We think the next big feature will be really cool. A Settings Reference where all of Portmaster's configuration options are listed and explained. Similar to something like Mozilla's description of the `about:config`. This is not live just yet, but might see the light of day in March. We shall see. Also, we want to migrate our guide on DNS Configuration over to the docs. type text href a Check Out the Contribution Guide https://docs.safing.io/portmaster/guides/contribute title description team projects progress Docs: Add Compatibility Lists Make it convenient for people to see which operating systems we support, which linux distros are compatible and which VPNs work or do not work. Make it easy for people to share their experiences with others. Daniel David Website type text h5 First Batch Is Live, Second Is Around the Corner type text p The first release in this regard included a Status Page for mobile and guides on both Linux distribution and VPN compatibility. It is all rather rough and simple, but we are iterating from there. type text p The next iteration has actually progressed well too, streamlining different pages to all include compatibility tables and making it easy for you to report positivies as well as negatives on GitHub. We are hard at work to bring this out as soon as possible. type text href a Discover the Documentation https://docs.safing.io/ title description team projects progress Docs: Modernize the Design Embed the documentation into our overall design by giving it a fresh new look. Luke Website type text h5 Concept Is Done, Implementation Pending type text p Luke started off with conceptualizing how the design of the documentation should be updated. Naturally its design will be similar to the rest of the website to fit into the overall experience. With a rough version completed the next step is to implement the concept into HTML and CSS. type text href a Check Out the Documentation https://docs.safing.io/ title description projects team progress Cryptocurrency Payments Enable you to pay for the SPN with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Monero Website Alex type text h5 Review Round III Defined Next Steps type text p In February we spent plenty of time to thoroughly review this large module and left no stone unturned. Some refactors and improvements were implemented in the process while others are being developed as we speak. type text p A lot has has been achieved and we do see light at the end of the tunnel, still we will take the time it needs to deploy a robust system. Payments are important.

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