Software

Yesterday I wrote about the graphical shell Launcher for GoodbyeDPI, which allows you to intuitively use the GoodbyeDPI solution from ValdikSS to solve the problem of YouTube throttling and the unavailability of a number of sites in Russia. Everything was fine, but these were solutions only for Windows. In the comments, the main questions were about what to do with Android, Linux, and Mac, and why not in the source code. Alas, the repressions of the RKN (Roskomnadzor) force the Habr administration to censor articles, I am forbidden from making changes to yesterday's article, and the link itself is only available outside of Russia, so I am explaining about Android, Linux, and Mac here, with links to the source code.

So, for Android there are a lot of projects, I liked Release ByeDPI 1.0.0 · dovecoteescapee/ByeDPIAndroid · GitHub. For Mac and Linux I would install https://github.com/xvzc/SpoofDPI/releases. All in source code.

ByeDPI for Android is an application that runs a local VPN service to bypass DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) and censorship. A SOCKS5 proxy ByeDPI is launched locally on your device and all traffic is redirected through it.

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.

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.

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!

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.

Ten years ago, I wrote a couple of articles - How to download the latest Office from the Microsoft website without any App-V / Habr (habr.com) and How to download Microsoft Office 16 from the Microsoft website / Habr (habr.com), using the then little-known Office Deployment Tool.

Time flies. After Office 2016 came Office 2019, Office 2021, and now it's time for Office 2024. Well, let's see what has changed in terms of downloading, installing, and activating the product over the past ten years.

First, let's talk about the versions and editions of Microsoft Office. To avoid being too meticulous in the description, I'll briefly state the most important thing: over the years, the Office lineup has evolved. There are different subscriptions and update plans, new features appear in new versions, and bug fixes and patches for found vulnerabilities are released for older versions.

Microsoft has long since switched to a system of distributing Office family products through various so-called "channels," depending on how often you want to receive new features and updates.

The key difference in the current download and installation of Office from what was relevant in the days of Office 2016 is that you must determine which distribution channel you are going to use - that is, from which channel you are going to install the product itself. For those who would like to study the different distribution channels in detail, I suggest reading the original source - Office updates - Office release notes | Microsoft Learn. For the rest, I'll summarize briefly - Microsoft now prefers to sell everyone a subscription to Microsoft 365 (what was previously called Office 365), with regularly updated features under the so-called Modern Lifecycle Policy. The consumer (boxed, retail) versions of Office 2021 are also distributed under this modern policy. Office 2021, for example, is only supported until October 13, 2026. And older versions follow the so-called Fixed Lifecycle Policy, under which Office 2016 and Office 2019 are only supported until October 14, 2025. In general, they will not stop working after that date, but they will stop receiving updates. And for those of you who use email services based on Microsoft Outlook.com or Office365, and possibly Microsoft Exchange users, with updates released after October 14, 2025, it's time to think about upgrading.

I've been practicing Zettelkasten for the past five years and still haven't found anything better than Niklas Luhmann's method. The problem is that Obsidian doesn't support it out of the box, so I had to write a plugin for organizing notes as close to Luhmann's original method as possible.

I spent a couple of weeks digging through Luhmann's original archive before I understood how it actually works. Structurally, the archive resembles a table of contents, but with the difference that a note can be inserted at any point, adding nested chapters.

In this article, we will look at how you can customize Windows, adjusting the appearance and functionality of the operating system to your preferences. This can be done using both built-in tools and third-party programs.

When customizing Windows, it's important to remember that most third-party programs make changes to system files and the registry. This can lead to malfunctions, conflicts between utilities, and problems after operating system updates.

List of utilities that will be covered in this article: PowerToys, WinAero Tweaker, ExplorerPatcher, Rainmeter, TranslucentTB, EarTrumpet.

By the way, if you are interested in IT technologies and useful tools, check out my Telegram channel. I regularly post fresh news, life hacks, and other useful things there. And now, to the heart of the article.

Discover what coin features are in short video apps, how they work, and how users earn rewards. Learn how coin systems boost engagement and monetization in 2025.

Short video apps have completely reshaped how people consume entertainment. Instead of sitting down for a two-hour movie or a 45-minute TV episode, viewers are now hooked on bite-sized videos that fit into their busy schedules. This shift has been accelerated by Gen Z and Millennials, who prefer quick storytelling formats that are both interactive and engaging.

In 2025, the OTT and short video industry is projected to see over 1.5 billion monthly active users worldwide, with an average revenue per user (ARPU) of nearly $12. The reasons are clear: affordability, accessibility, and convenience. The success of apps like DramaBox shows that people are willing to spend money on shorter dramas as long as they deliver strong storytelling.

For entrepreneurs, this presents a golden opportunity to build OTT platforms like DramaBox and tap into this global demand.

This article presents a business-driven approach to software architecture, focusing on maximizing profitability through technical decisions. It advocates for:

Distributed, stateless services with immutable models for scalability

Isolated third-party integrations without disrupting core logic

Simple, modular design 

Best for:

✔ Tech leads designing scalable systems
✔ Managers optimizing dev efficiency
✔ Stakeholders evaluating ROI on architecture

There was already news on Habr about this significant event. Indeed, it resembles a retelling of the official Microsoft press release, but that's how the 'news' should be.

Surprisingly, there are strict mathematical methods that literally allow to hear visual geometric forms and, conversely, to see the beauty of musical harmonies...

[Read on Russian]

Referential transparency, a key concept in functional programming, is often associated with more reliable, easier to test, and safer software. This term refers to a principle in which a function, given the same input, will always produce the same output without producing any side effects.

In the real world of software development, side effects are inevitable. Programs are rarely useful unless they interact with the outside world. This interaction could be reading from or writing to the console, making network requests, querying a database, or modifying a variable.

Yet, despite the necessity of side effects, they introduce risks and complexities. Programs with side effects are harder to test, harder to reason about, and more prone to bugs. They can also make the system as a whole more difficult to understand and maintain, due to hidden dependencies between components.

Enter referential transparency - a concept that means a function, given the same input, will always provide the same output, without creating any side effects. A function that adheres to this principle doesn't read any global state or change any state outside of its scope. The result is code that is more predictable and easier to reason about.

In terms of software safety and reliability, the absence of side effects is not enough. Programs should also be free from external influence - their results should only depend on their arguments. That is, programs should not read data from the console, a file, network, database, or even system variables.

As a product owner, it is common to face the question of whether to proceed with option A or option B. Or, which version of the screen should be implemented to achieve better results? Making such decisions can be challenging, especially when you are under tight deadlines with limited resources. Furthermore, such decisions are made based on personal judgment or copying the approach of a competitor, which can lead to suboptimal results.

The good news is that one can avoid such pitfalls by setting up a simple experiment environment that requires relatively low effort. In this article, we will describe how you can achieve this.

I believe listicles have a huge potential for testing demand hypotheses. Have you tried using listicles for your demand validation? If so - let us know in the comments how this worked for you.

Do you know these "Top N something something" kind of articles? Like:
- 5 best GPS vehicle trackers
- The 14 hair growth products that actually work
- Top 10 Best CRM Software Tools in 2023
They are often referred to as "listicles" - articles presented in the form of a list.

I love them - they make picking a new phone, a movie to watch, an app to install much easier. I also use them at work all the time while looking for solutions to everyday challenges.

So what if we use one of them to benchmark our product against the best available alternatives?

The sound of rock music, in particular of hard rock and heavy metal, is largely based on a specially distorted guitar sound, for which electronic “distortion” devices, tube amplifiers in “overloaded” mode, computers with appropriate software and digital processors are used. increasingly using neural network algorithms.

The distorted sound of electric guitars began to gain popularity around the 1960s. Since that time, the sound of overloaded tube amplifiers, connected to powerful dedicated guitar speakers with large dedicated speakers, has been considered the benchmark in rock music. But tube amplifiers were relatively expensive and inconvenient to operate. Therefore, semiconductor distortion devices were developed.

At that time, the electrical circuitry of distortion devices was relatively simple and the signal output from their output only vaguely resembled the sound of an overloaded tube amplifier. Nevertheless, it was still somewhat similar to the “sound of a lamp” and this provided a powerful incentive for designers of analog semiconductor distortion circuits to continue their research, complicate circuits and propose new circuit solutions. The heyday of analog solid-state distortion was around 1995-2010. The most popular were electrical circuit diagrams like those shown in the figure below.

e-Learning is an extension of/ alternative to a traditional classroom setup. e-learning, commonly known as ‘online learning’ or ‘virtual learning’ is ideally a one-way or two-way digital communication established on a device with video and voice call integration using internet access. The last two years made us realize how technology can facilitate and improve communication. Digital technology had its impact in almost every industry including the sensitive education sector.

In-app messages are targeted notifications sent to customers/ users while they are active on the website or mobile application. They are a very effective way to engage customers as they are already within the application looking for specific information. In-app chat applications help connect better with the users and improve user retention as they are timely and targeted.