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Article

Bypassing blocks on OpenWRT using v2rayA (xray-core) and GeoIP, Geosite Re:filter, Antifilter databases

Level of difficultyEasy
Reading time6 min
Reach and readers4.4K

In this guide, we will install the v2rayA package on OpenWRT using the stable 23.05.0. A router with at least 128 MB of RAM (256 is preferable) and more than 16 MB of storage is recommended (the installation takes about 30 MB of storage)

v2rayA is a simple-to-use and powerful client focused on Linux. Despite its name, the current version uses xray-core, although it's also possible to use v2ray-core. It has a web interface for managing settings and importing configurations and subscriptions. It supports everything that xray-core supports:

Shadowsocks (incl. 2022), ShadowsocksR, Trojan, Vless (including XTLS-Reality, XHTTP), Vmess, Juicity, Tuic

The guide will include:

1. Installation from the repository

2. Configuring v2rayA and bypassing blocks using Re:filter, Antifilter GeoIP, Geosite

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Article

Testing 11 Programs for PC Screen Recording

Level of difficultyEasy
Reading time7 min
Reach and readers1.1K

The other day I was watching a video about artificial intelligence and its future development in editing software. It was a typical webinar: the speaker was showing off features in DaVinci Resolve while a talking head was broadcast in a small window.

And then I had the idea to write a post about the best screen recording programs. Many people need them: bloggers, teachers, online course sellers. Companies use them to create tutorials and send them to employees, and gamers record their gameplay.

I tested 11 options, and I'm sharing my thoughts in this review.

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Article

Wireshark — A Detailed Guide to Getting Started

Level of difficultyMedium
Reading time8 min
Reach and readers1.5K

Wireshark is a widely used tool for capturing and analyzing network traffic, actively used for both educational purposes and for troubleshooting computer or network issues. Wireshark works with almost all OSI model protocols, has a user-friendly interface, and a convenient data filtering system. In addition, the program is cross-platform and supports the following operating systems: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD.

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Article

(VLESS) VPN client for Windows

Level of difficultyEasy
Reading time3 min
Reach and readers10K

Recently, I needed to run a VLESS subscription on Windows, make it work with my work VPN, and deal with all the associated 'joys.' I tried v2rayN, Nekoray, and Hiddify—and quickly realized I wanted to write my own client.
And so, singbox-launcher was born:
👉 https://github.com/Leadaxe/singbox-launcher

Below are a few details about why and what came of it.

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Article

My TOP Android Emulators: Review and Comparison

Reading time8 min
Reach and readers1.4K

Hello! How often in your work have you needed to run some strange application that you really don't want to or it's very dangerous to run on your personal smartphone, but you don't have a test device (a victim of future experiments) on hand to run it?

Yes, you can run Android Studio, but this software requires a preliminary study of the manual - without it, you won't be able to run anything on it, but there isn't always time and desire for such tasks. It is believed that the best task is one that can be delegated to another person, and all their emerging questions can be answered with a link to an article.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find such an article, and not to go far, I wrote one myself. In short, it's a common problem: if you can't find a good comparison, figure it out yourself.

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Article

The Best Free Programs for Finding Duplicate Photos

Level of difficultyEasy
Reading time7 min
Reach and readers949

Are you familiar with that feeling of slight panic when your laptop suddenly starts beeping plaintively, and a sinister warning appears on the screen: 'Disk almost full'? This happened to me recently too. I opened File Explorer and was stunned – my 1 TB external drive was filled to the brim – 95% full!

The culprits weren't movies or games, but a giant graveyard of photos. Twelve folders with the generic name 'DCIM,' mountains of screenshots I had copied five times 'just in case,' and heaps of nearly identical sunset shots taken in burst mode. Trying to manually find identical photos was like looking for a needle in a haystack the size of Siberia.

In a previous article, I discussed how to best sort photos, and even then I realized it was time to declare war on duplicates. And that moment has come. After testing more than 15 tools (and wasting a lot of nerves), I've selected 5 free programs that really help solve the problem. I'll share this experience with you.

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Article

WebTorrent: torrents in your browser. No plugins, pure JavaScript

Reading time2 min
Reach and readers1K


Now you don't need a separate torrent client to download and watch movies from torrents. Likewise, you don't need a separate client to seed files via the BitTorrent protocol. A regular browser is enough; Chrome, Firefox, and Opera (desktop and Android) are supported.

This is all thanks to WebTorrent—a hybrid of BitTorrent and WebRTC. Downloading and seeding happen directly through the website. The built-in player starts showing the movie as soon as a few percent has been downloaded.
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Article

Regular expressions (regexp) — the basics

Reading time21 min
Reach and readers665

Regular expressions (also called regexp, or regex) are a mechanism for finding and replacing text. In a string, a file, multiple files... They are used by developers in application code, testers in autotests, and even just when working on the command line!

Why is this better than a simple search? Because it allows you to specify a pattern.

For example, you receive a date of birth in the DD.MM.YYYYY format. You need to pass it on, but in the YYYY-MM-DD format. How can you do this with a simple search? You don't know in advance what the exact date will be.

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Article

Index page pruning in PostgreSQL

Level of difficultyEasy
Reading time11 min
Reach and readers658

Page pruning (HOT cleanup) is an optimization allowing to efficiently remove old row versions (tuples) from table blocks. The freed space will be reused for new row versions. The only space occupied by row versions beyond the database's xmin horizon is reclaimed. This article examines the algorithm behind a similar optimization for indexes. If the xmin horizon is held back - by a long-running query or transaction - neither page pruning nor VACUUM can reclaim space, forcing new row versions to be inserted into different blocks. With the standard pgbench test, we demonstrate how significantly performance can degrade when the database horizon is held back, and we analyze the underlying causes. 

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Article

VPN Protocols: An Overview of the Most Popular Ones

Level of difficultyMedium
Reading time8 min
Reach and readers1K

With the rise of privacy threats and constant internet restrictions, using a VPN has become the norm for many users. However, behind the simplicity of connecting lie technical features that can significantly impact

the user experience. One of the key factors is the choice of VPN protocol, which determines the speed, stability, and security level of the connection.

This article will provide a detailed breakdown of the most popular VPN protocols, their features, advantages, and disadvantages, and will also offer examples of how to use each of them.

By the way, I took all the pictures from those, you know, the internets, but I analyzed and explained them myself, just for you :)

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Article

Which VPS provider to choose for your own server in 2023. Paying for everything with a Russian card

Level of difficultyEasy
Reading time7 min
Reach and readers851

Having your own VPS for a VPN is quite advantageous. There are no limits on the number of clients; you can provide a VPN connection to all your relatives, friends, and acquaintances. And you can pay 160–300 rubles a month for it. And while public VPNs are being actively blocked by DNS and IP, personal VPNs have so far avoided this fate.

There are downsides: server administration and a lack of geographical diversity.

A VPN requires a foreign server, and for over a year now, there have been problems with paying for foreign services in Russia. But there are Russian companies that provide foreign servers, and you can pay them with a Russian card.
I registered with a dozen providers and got as far as purchasing a VPS with five of them. And after testing, only three remained.

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Article

Taking 'Telega' apart: the only free cheese is in a mousetrap

Reading time5 min
Reach and readers1.4K

Hack Time, Habr!

The other day, I came across a high-profile investigation by Dmytro Tarasenko (aka iTaysonLab).

He was the one who decompiled the APK of the new 'Telega' app, identified links to the VK and Catogram infrastructure, and published the details on the BruhCollective Telegram channel.

My colleagues uncovered many alarming facts, but as someone who loves to dig into the guts of applications, I wanted to go further, confirm their findings, and find what dynamic analysis missed.

I decided to conduct a full static analysis of the APK, deobfuscating the code to create the most complete and technically supported picture possible.
What is really hiding behind the promises of an 'improved' Telegram?

Let's take a look.

Spoiler: it's not secure, not private, but it's damn interesting. Let's go!

Let's look under the hood
Article

Top 10 Free Neural Networks for Photo Generation

Reading time4 min
Reach and readers953

Hi, I'm Dima and, like many, I've been using neural networks to create images for many years. But over the last year and a half, the market for generative models has changed so much and become so huge that it's impossible to try all the models. However, the question of which neural network is the best still remains. Benchmarks are poorly suited for a real assessment of creativity and cost, so I've gathered 10 models in one place, what they are best suited for, and what the price is (or rather, the free limit). I hope this helps you choose the most optimal neural network for your tasks.

Below is an honest rating based on quality, realism, convenience, and price.

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Article

How to Not Lose Access to Telegram and Protect Yourself from Hacking

Level of difficultyEasy
Reading time8 min
Reach and readers745

It's been two years since I posted a video and a post about how I recovered my friend's Telegram account using JavaScript. Since then, I've helped over a hundred people regain access to their accounts. Then the method stopped working

I decided to gather the important security aspects of your Telegram account in one place.

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Article

Ollama from A to Z: How to Choose a Model, Configure, and Integrate

Level of difficultyMedium
Reading time9 min
Reach and readers1.4K

In this article, we take a detailed look at Ollama — a tool for running large language models (LLMs) locally. You will learn how to install the program, choose a suitable model, understand formats and quantization, configure the system for your hardware, and work both via the CLI, and via the API. Practical tips, configuration examples, and VRAM recommendations will help you use Ollama as effectively as possible for dialogues, text generation, code, and other tasks.

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Article

Bypassing YouTube throttling on Android TV without a VPN

Level of difficultyMedium
Reading time3 min
Reach and readers787

Hello everyone, today we'll talk about Android TV. Bypassing the throttling on a TV seemed to be the most problematic and difficult for me. Since I have several TVs at home deprived of YouTube, and even more are waiting to be set up for friends and acquaintances, I decided to collect all the bypass methods I could find.

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Article

Local Chatbot Without Limits: A Guide to LM Studio and Open LLMs

Level of difficultyEasy
Reading time11 min
Reach and readers1.6K

In this article, we will not only install a local (and free) alternative to ChatGPT, but also review several open LLMs, delve into the advanced settings of LM Studio, connect the chatbot to Visual Studio Code, and teach it to assist us with programming. We will also look at how to fine-tune the model's behavior using system prompts.

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Article

An economic crisis awaits us in 2026. And this isn't the traditional pre-New Year whining

Level of difficultyEasy
Reading time15 min
Reach and readers465

What do we have at the end of 2025?

Mass layoffs, tightening of the screws by the state and marketplaces. An increase in VAT, which means a rise in store prices. The SMO continues, leading to high government spending, a high Central Bank rate, and consequently, a business freeze.

I spoke with the owners of manufacturing companies, an IT company, and an analytical agency who have already been through crises, and I asked:

'What are you going to do in 2026 to survive?'.

In short: in the year of the horse, you'll have to work like a horse.

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