All Google and Facebook related scripts removed from site

General Announcements about Unreal Tournament and UT99.org
User avatar
Shade
Site Admin
Posts: 1481
Joined: Sun Jan 27, 2008 12:03 pm
Personal rank: Founder of UT99.org
Location: Germany

All Google and Facebook related scripts removed from site

Post by Shade »

Hello Community,

to avoid any problems regarding the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), I decided to make it simple and remove all Google and Facebook related scripts from the site.
This includes social buttons and loaded Google fonts.

If you still see anything loaded from Google or Facebook, please let me know.

Have a nice day! :)
UT99.org Discord Server: https://discord.gg/6CP2UjZ
UT Server Browser: https://ut99.org/servers
User avatar
Dr.Flay
Godlike
Posts: 3350
Joined: Thu Aug 04, 2011 9:26 pm
Personal rank: Chaos Evangelist
Location: Kernow, UK

Re: All Google and Facebook related scripts removed from sit

Post by Dr.Flay »

I don't know how important this is, but there is still 1 element
google.jpg
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Terraniux
Masterful
Posts: 717
Joined: Mon Jan 05, 2009 8:08 pm
Personal rank: Banished member

Re: All Google and Facebook related scripts removed from sit

Post by Terraniux »

I find this very nice. No facebook and other privacy miners. Thank you shade. :thuup:
This member can only post when permitted.
User avatar
Feralidragon
Godlike
Posts: 5498
Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2008 6:24 pm
Personal rank: Work In Progress
Location: Liandri

Re: All Google and Facebook related scripts removed from sit

Post by Feralidragon »

I am sorry, but if you're truly worried about GDPR, then you ought to do a lot more investigation, because those are the least of your problems in this site.

For instance:
- you didn't update the privacy policy;
- you don't inform that this site uses cookies (although this comes from way before GDPR, but now it will be enforced more aggressively);
- users receive emails from this site by default (under GDPR they shouldn't), and there's no way to disable that fully (you can only disable some specific ones);
- you offer no way for users to download all the data stored about themselves from your database;
- you offer no way for users to delete their own accounts, permanently.

But I don't believe you will have any issues, since only companies and much bigger sites will be targeted, and if you do have, what you just did amounts to almost nothing to be honest with you.
The whole forum software is severely outdated, and while I didn't check it myself, I would guess that newer phpBB versions are GDPR-compliant, so you may want look into that as well.

Furthermore, and also replying to this:
Terraniux wrote:I find this very nice. No facebook and other privacy miners. Thank you shade. :thuup:
Since images from remote sources are allowed, not only can they be used for tracking from those sources, it's easier to track from them since tracker blockers and such won't generally block images from loading (ever heard of a tracking pixel? same thing).

Every time you see a post with remotely-loaded content, you may already being tracked.
I mean, even Higor has a signature that shows your IP and OS, and while this is not necessarily "tracking", it should give you a good idea of what sites may be doing, which only furthers the irrelevance of what Shade just did here, relatively speaking.
The only way to avoid this is to host everything locally.
User avatar
Raynor
Adept
Posts: 426
Joined: Sun Jan 27, 2008 5:09 pm

Re: All Google and Facebook related scripts removed from sit

Post by Raynor »

Any effort to reduce FB and Google presence is positive in my view. Thanks Shade!
Higor
Godlike
Posts: 1866
Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 6:47 pm

Re: All Google and Facebook related scripts removed from sit

Post by Higor »

Feralidragon wrote:The only way to avoid this is to host everything locally.
In other words the legislators drafting the GDPR had no idea what they were doing.

Still getting rid of Lifelog... err... I mean, F*ceb*ok is good. (let's see who connects the dots)
User avatar
papercoffee
Godlike
Posts: 10507
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2009 11:36 am
Personal rank: coffee addicted !!!
Location: Cologne, the city with the big cathedral.

Re: All Google and Facebook related scripts removed from sit

Post by papercoffee »

Higor wrote: Still getting rid of Lifelog... err... I mean, F*ceb*ok is good. (let's see who connects the dots)
You mean Farcebook? :ironic:
Higor wrote:In other words the legislators drafting the GDPR had no idea what they were doing.
Politicians ...they never know what they are doing.
They live in an ivory tower of ignorance, surrounded by lobbyists and bankers... reality is a fairytale for them.

btw.
The newest EU law "reform of the copyright" is even worse.
User avatar
DLD-RABBIT
Average
Posts: 75
Joined: Wed Jun 05, 2013 1:48 pm
Personal rank: *...*
Location: Eden, North Carolina USA

Re: All Google and Facebook related scripts removed from sit

Post by DLD-RABBIT »

What are the social buttons :barf: Does this include links hosted by Google?
MrLoathsome
Inhuman
Posts: 958
Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2010 9:02 pm
Personal rank: I am quite rank.
Location: MrLoathsome fell out of the world!

Re: All Google and Facebook related scripts removed from sit

Post by MrLoathsome »

Facebook & Twitter = Computing for Idiots.

I approve.
blarg
User avatar
Feralidragon
Godlike
Posts: 5498
Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2008 6:24 pm
Personal rank: Work In Progress
Location: Liandri

Re: All Google and Facebook related scripts removed from sit

Post by Feralidragon »

Higor wrote:In other words the legislators drafting the GDPR had no idea what they were doing.
When it comes to GDPR itself, it's actually not bad, surprisingly, and it has a good intention behind it, and it does inform and protect the users to some extent on how their data is used.
But yeah, it was legislated by those whose knowledge about how things work start in Google and ends in Facebook and Twitter, that's all they know, but in this case things turned out well, I don't think we can really complain, it's a reasonable set of laws.

The real bad stuff is only starting:
papercoffee wrote:The newest EU law "reform of the copyright" is even worse.
Not only article 11 is laughably easy to get around, it actually kills those it aims to protect if you don't.
But it's up to those affected by it to speak up and make noise, even because they alone have the means to do more noise than everyone else combined.

Article 13 on the other hand shows how dangerous the mix of ignorance with power actually is.
It aims to shift the entire responsibility of content from the content uploaders to the platform itself, by forcing the platforms to prevent copyrighted stuff from being uploaded in the first place.
It essentially means that, in the worst case scenario, even forums cannot exist anymore, because technically one can post copyrighted content in their posts, and you cannot realistically really prevent that without not having the platform in the first place.

It's the first set of laws which may actually kill the Internet completely on the EU side of the world.

Those advocating this law claim that these platforms should have AI to detect these, which shows their complete and utter ignorance about how the technology works, and the fact that not only it doesn't work very well, it's stupidly easy to get around, and there's no better example in the entire web than Youtube itself: they have measures in place to prevent copyrighted videos from the start, however the entire thing is riddled with copyrighted videos anyway, because no matter how good their system is, it cannot effectively prevent those videos.

In other words, article 13 pretty much kills even platforms like Youtube, which already have systems like those in place, and yet they do not work well.

But, the good news is that nothing has been approved yet, only the discussion and voting for it was approved with 15 against 10, so the real thing will start next month I believe and extend for some more months until the end of year until they reach a final consensus, and all it takes is to fail in one of the votings for the entire thing to crumble.
Given that even huge corporations like Google are directly affected by this, this is the time they can actually use their corporative weight, together with others, to thwart the implementation of this law.

Either that, or we may as well shift all hosting to Russia or any other non-EU country, which would be easier and cheaper, unlike GDPR.
noccer
Adept
Posts: 367
Joined: Sun Aug 01, 2010 12:15 pm
Personal rank: Proud Terrorist

Re: All Google and Facebook related scripts removed from sit

Post by noccer »

tbh, i would never have seen such an effect since everything that has to do wit hacebook is blocked per default for me.
ublock Origin and noScript do one part, a looooooooooooong hosts localhosts all facebook-hosts :D

However, i think it is nice to remove all that crap. When setting up a new blog all scripts from other hosts will be removed again. I never needed it and am sure, ut99org also never needed it.
About new copyright law:
I hate it, i am not able to make a new UT file host again, if i ever want it.
Image

>>You can't steal any ip (v4)adresses, there are exactly 4294967296 of them, and they will still exist when you wrote down all of them, or are stored in a (master)servers database ;)<<
User avatar
Shade
Site Admin
Posts: 1481
Joined: Sun Jan 27, 2008 12:03 pm
Personal rank: Founder of UT99.org
Location: Germany

Re: All Google and Facebook related scripts removed from sit

Post by Shade »

Cookie Info added. More to come. Thanks for the feedback!

@Dr.Flay I couldn't find the source. Did you delete your cache?
UT99.org Discord Server: https://discord.gg/6CP2UjZ
UT Server Browser: https://ut99.org/servers
RocketJedi
Inhuman
Posts: 851
Joined: Wed Mar 12, 2008 7:14 pm
Personal rank: I.T Master
Location: New York

Re: All Google and Facebook related scripts removed from sit

Post by RocketJedi »

Feralidragon wrote:
Higor wrote:In other words the legislators drafting the GDPR had no idea what they were doing.
When it comes to GDPR itself, it's actually not bad, surprisingly, and it has a good intention behind it, and it does inform and protect the users to some extent on how their data is used.
But yeah, it was legislated by those whose knowledge about how things work start in Google and ends in Facebook and Twitter, that's all they know, but in this case things turned out well, I don't think we can really complain, it's a reasonable set of laws.

The real bad stuff is only starting:
papercoffee wrote:The newest EU law "reform of the copyright" is even worse.
Not only article 11 is laughably easy to get around, it actually kills those it aims to protect if you don't.
But it's up to those affected by it to speak up and make noise, even because they alone have the means to do more noise than everyone else combined.

Article 13 on the other hand shows how dangerous the mix of ignorance with power actually is.
It aims to shift the entire responsibility of content from the content uploaders to the platform itself, by forcing the platforms to prevent copyrighted stuff from being uploaded in the first place.
It essentially means that, in the worst case scenario, even forums cannot exist anymore, because technically one can post copyrighted content in their posts, and you cannot realistically really prevent that without not having the platform in the first place.

It's the first set of laws which may actually kill the Internet completely on the EU side of the world.

Those advocating this law claim that these platforms should have AI to detect these, which shows their complete and utter ignorance about how the technology works, and the fact that not only it doesn't work very well, it's stupidly easy to get around, and there's no better example in the entire web than Youtube itself: they have measures in place to prevent copyrighted videos from the start, however the entire thing is riddled with copyrighted videos anyway, because no matter how good their system is, it cannot effectively prevent those videos.

In other words, article 13 pretty much kills even platforms like Youtube, which already have systems like those in place, and yet they do not work well.

But, the good news is that nothing has been approved yet, only the discussion and voting for it was approved with 15 against 10, so the real thing will start next month I believe and extend for some more months until the end of year until they reach a final consensus, and all it takes is to fail in one of the votings for the entire thing to crumble.
Given that even huge corporations like Google are directly affected by this, this is the time they can actually use their corporative weight, together with others, to thwart the implementation of this law.

Either that, or we may as well shift all hosting to Russia or any other non-EU country, which would be easier and cheaper, unlike GDPR.
:thuup:
https://www.vulpinemission.com
Image Rocket-X8 FLY JETS!
Image MONSTERHUNT w/ NALI WEAPONS 3 + RX8
Image BUNNYTRACK NY
Image SNIPER DEATHMATCH
Image InstaGib + ComboGib + Jailbreak
Image ROSEBUM ROCKET-X RB
User avatar
ANUBITEK
Adept
Posts: 261
Joined: Sun Dec 28, 2014 1:10 am
Location: Anubitek

Re: All Google and Facebook related scripts removed from sit

Post by ANUBITEK »

Higor wrote:Still getting rid of Lifelog... err... I mean, F*ceb*ok is good. (let's see who connects the dots)
Connected the dots, got two short lines in between text. This connect-the-dots picture sucks dude.
<<| http://uncodex.ut-files.com/ |>>

Code reference for UGold, UT99, Unreal2, UT2k3, UT3
Additional Beyond Unreal Wiki Links
wiki.beyondunreal.com/Legacy:Console_Bar
wiki.beyondunreal.com/Exec_commands#Load
wiki.beyondunreal.com/Legacy:Exec_Directive#Loading_Other_Packages
wiki.beyondunreal.com/Legacy:Config_Vars_And_.Ini_Files
wiki.beyondunreal.com/Legacy:INT_File
User avatar
Dr.Flay
Godlike
Posts: 3350
Joined: Thu Aug 04, 2011 9:26 pm
Personal rank: Chaos Evangelist
Location: Kernow, UK

Re: All Google and Facebook related scripts removed from sit

Post by Dr.Flay »

I realised my extensions would have been adding extra content, so I disabled everything except ContentBlockHelper and deleted the cookies.
Cleaner result now.
I see Paypal are using a tracking pixel (and I should probably whitelist that cookie notification script)
contents.jpg
As that script at https://cookieinfoscript.com is providing the (required by EU Law) notification about the use of cookies on the site, it may be worth thinking about moving it to this domain, or writing it somewhere in the signup or login page.

People that use script blockers won't see it either way we have it, but we can then say;
"This site does not use trackers or external elements to function."


The new copyright laws will not be as much a problem here I think, at least compared to most other similar forums.
We have a reputation for disapproving of posting anything that may be a copyright problem, and encouraging the use of alternative resources.
Go to other game forums and you will find lots of repackaged music for use in-game.
It doesn't matter what the container is, distributing it is still a crime in most Countries.

Peoples avatars are as likely to attract the copyright police, as the random memes and signatures containing "borrowed" images.
The big patent trolls.... sorry I mean tech companies have already shown how protective they are of their precious emotes, and all manner of stupidness has been dragged into court, with Apple, Samsung, Google and more, all thinking emoticon design is worth copyrighting and suing for mega-bucks.

There will be allowances for journalism and "fair-use", but we can assume that fair-use restrictions will be insane
The BBC has a downloadable show on the world service page where they interview a few people it will affect, such as the web archive
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cswhdf
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.