safing-web/_publications/2021-12-07-progress-update-november.md

category	layout	title	date	author	custom_thumbnail_name	progress_update	cards
blog	blog	#016 - Progress Update November	2021-12-07	David	progress-update	true	done in_progress postponed discarded title description projects progress team Alpha + In-App Account Login Prepare to get rid of SPN pre-orders by implementing the In-App login into the Portmaster. SPN Portmaster type text h5 SPN Reaches Alpha type text p Two things kept the SPN from reaching the Alpha phase. The In-App Login and a way to show customers what the SPN really is doing. Daniel and Patrick spent most of the last month working on this feature and I am happy to say they completed an amazing job. type text p Now, as an SPN customer you can log in to your account via the Portmaster and see all connections and servers you are using on a neat map. type text p This is a big milestone with a lot more to celebrate and talk about: type text href a Dive Into the Announcement Blog Post + See the SPN in Action https://safing.io/blog/2021/12/06/spn-reaches-alpha/ Daniel Patrick title description projects progress team Compatibility Assistant Portmaster users regularly run into different compatibility issues, breaking system integration, DNS or specific apps. Implement self-checks so the Portmaster can notify users about these issues. Improving their understanding of their state might also help in their issue reporting. Portmaster type text h5 Portmaster Now Makes Local Self-Checks type text p Daniel also found the time to squeeze this feature into his tight schedule. The Portmaster now checks for Integration, Compatibility and Secure DNS issues. Since technical integration was not too complicated this could move rather swiftly. type text p Next to the technical aspect this task also required some brainpower in order to communicate the issue in an easy way; as well as thinking about how to integrate it into the User Interface. With all that done, affected users now get notified whenever an issue occurs. We hope you also feel this is a good step for the Alpha software. Daniel title description progress team projects Cryptocurrency Payments Now that the tech is in place, set up the required back office structures in order to activate this feature. type text h5 SPN Payments Now Accept Bitcoin, Ethereum and Monero type text p Last month we talked about how the tech behind crypto payments was ready, but the back office still had a few tasks to do. Well, glad to say that is done and dusted. Raphael spent a good amount of time setting up the various crypto addresses. Tedious, but we think it was worth it. Raphael Back Office title description projects progress team Credit Card Payments Enable you to pay for the SPN with credit cards. Website type text h5 Third Implementation Attempt Was the Charm type text p A somewhat fun fact: this implementation actually is our third attempt at adding credit card payments. We know many of you asked for this, but previously different obstacles lead us to abort the project. Twice. type text h5 Basic Setup Sped Things Up type text p This time around we kept things simple. Make it super clear a third party (Stripe) is involved and hence just implement a simple checkout system where a customer top ups their account without automatic recharging. Alex dug into this at the beginning of the month and was done before the month ended. Great job! Alex title description progress team projects Product Feature Videos Show what the Portmaster / the SPN are all about; in video format. Display them on the website where fitting. type text h5 The Last "Coming Soon" Lie Has Been Removed type text p What is the biggest lie on the Internet? Yeah: "Coming Soon". type text p Mid 2020, after realizing we too often over-promised and under-delivered; we stopped communicating deadlines, introduced the Next Page and started with these progress updates. Today, we feel much more confident in our communication, and I hope you enjoy this way of communication too. type text p But with all the positive changes, there still was this nasty element on our website. On the SPN page there was this placeholder image saying a video would be "coming soon". We always planned to insert a real video, since early 2020. But other things always turned out to be more important. Lol. type text h5 SPN Product Video Is Here, Portmaster In the Pipeline type text p Anyway, long story short, that was finally removed. You can now jump into a video on the SPN page where product is showcased, Twitch style. Tabi and David worked on this task, with another video about the Portmaster done as well. It is only waiting for a publishing date. Stay tuned. type text href a Check Out the Video on the SPN Page https://safing.io/spn/ David Tabitha Marketing title description projects progress team Bug Hunting Hunt down bugs that dug up during our feature development focus weeks. Fix as many as you can. SPN Portmaster type text h5 The Hunt Has Started type text p Bug fixing normally happens regularly, but with all our attention focusing on the SPN Alpha release, a few bugs piled up and did not get the attention they deserve. The next weeks we will be focusing on tackling some of the bugs backlog. type text p On this note, thank you so much to everyone making reports! Only through you can we find bugs and edge cases to further mature the Portmaster. Also, we expect some SPN bugs to come in which we naturally will tackle as soon as possible too. type text p Quick sidenote: in case you did not know, you can easily report bugs from within the Portmaster Application. The question mark on the left navbar will lead the way. Daniel title description projects progress team Rework Installers & PKGBUILD The current installation experience is sub-optimal. Prompt users to reboot their system after installation to mitigate issues. Revisit our linux distribution, improve the PKGBUILD and add packaging for RPM and Arch. Also, submit Portmaster to AUR. Portmaster type text h5 Progress Paused Due to Focus on SPN Alpha type text p We already came pretty far with this task in October. The only thing missing was merging all our work into the (currently outdated) packaging repository. We thought we would finish it in November, but the SPN Alpha launch turned out to require all of Patrick's and Daniel's attention hence we paused this. Next chance: December. Fingers crossed. Patrick title description projects progress team Simplify Portmaster Settings Current Portmaster settings are complicated. Especially settings connected to the Network Ratings are hard to grasp for new users. Re-imagine and simplify. Portmaster type text h5 Progress Paused Due to Focus on SPN Alpha type text p Same story here, the designs already are ready for this task, but the SPN Alpha launch turned out to require all of Patrick's and Daniel's attention hence we paused this. Next chance: December. Fingers crossed. Luke Patrick title description projects progress team Evaluate Custom Filter Lists Research how custom filter lists could be integrated into the Portmaster. After the evaluation decide whether to move this forward or not. Portmaster type text h5 Evaluation Just Started Out type text p We hear you! A lot of people have been asking about custom filter lists recently, so we decided to look into this a bit more. First we will look into the technical feasibility of this feature. We feel pretty confident that there will be a solution to this. Depending on the results and its complexity this might even be done this month. Or later. We shall see - will keep you posted as always. Daniel title description projects progress team Comparison Blog Posts Write blog posts comparing the Portmaster with different alternatives. What does the Portmaster do better? Where are others better? Be honest. Website type text h5 Portmaster vs Pi-hole Coming Up type text p A few months ago, Pranav, a freelancer & privacy enthusiast reached out and proposed co-operation. After an evaluation, we saw a great fit with his writing skills. We at Safing have so many planned blogs but only rarely does this area get a lot of attention - next to the update blogs. type text p So focusing on the Portmaster comparison blogs for now, I can already tell that the first blog post is wrapping up. Portmaster vs Pi-hole. Simplewall is the next planned post. Looking forward to see what you all thing! type text href a Subscribe to the RSS Feed so you do not miss it https://safing.io/blog.xml David Pranav title description projects progress team Internal Tailwind Docs Create our own docs page where Safing styled tailwind elements are displayed. Make it easy to copy paste HTML when creating new sites or elements. Website type text h5 Internal Docs Are Nearing Completion type text p This is a field where you will not see a lot of impact directly, but for us this is becoming a very cool project. If you are a web developer you might know of CSS libraries like Bootstrap, Fomantic, etc... What those have libraries have in common are their docs, where you can easily see what elements exist and then simply copy paste them where needed. type text p Luke is basically creating that for our CSS. It is built with tailwind, but will feel like bootstrap. Web developers will know what I mean. The project has come pretty far, it feels like it is nearing completion. Luke

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