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GitHub XP – GitHub Windows XP Theme

209 points by vlucas 8y ago

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
mappu 8y ago
Looks great! Love the idea. I'll buy the extension off you for $5/install count? I promise to wait at least a day before bundling malware, since you hit front page of HN there should be some great targets. /Sarcasm obviously. But there's just no way i'm installing something that can "read and change my data on github.com". Chrome extension permission granularity is just not sufficient. Especially since data exfiltration is possible using CSS only (e.g. https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/05/28/large-scale-analysis-of-style-injection-by-relative-path-overwrite/ https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/05/28/large-scale-analysis-of-... )
- Mononokay 8y ago
  Then install it yourself? It's open source software. Get over yourself.
- creatonez 8y ago
  >permission granularity is just not sufficient This is a careful balance between extensions being almost completely useless and extensions being able to take over the whole browser... Just read the source code if you don't trust it. Edit: it seems this extension has no javascript code, just stylesheets that get applied by manifest.json. Seems this actually could be a good spot for more granular permissions. "change style information on *.github.com"
  - mappu 8y ago
    > Just read the source code if you don't trust it. No, that doesn't really work for Chrome extensions - they can silently auto-update, and will no longer match the published source. It's just barely possible to run the extension directly from the source code - you either need to put up with popup warnings every single time you open the browser, or, need to install an entirely separate developer version of Chrome. Certainly most people here aren't doing that. > change style information on .github.com It would be an improvement, but it turns out stylesheets can be used for malicious data exfiltration anyway (see parent).
    - creatonez 8y ago
      >No, that doesn't really work for Chrome extensions - they can silently auto-update, and will no longer match the published source. As much as I hate Google, this is exactly how most people use free software linux distributions. The only difference is the barrier of entry for new/updated software. >need to install an entirely separate developer version of Chrome Heh, I'd probably expect anyone who audits all of the software they use to already be using chromium.
      - mappu 8y ago
        The salient difference is that bribing Google or Red Hat is practically impossible (a hypothetical billion-dollar exercise reserved for state actors); whereas bribing Chrome extension developers is definitely not hypothetical, maybe even commonplace (e.g. some friends were hit by https://www.ghacks.net/2013/12/26/hoverzooms-malware-controversy-imagus-alternative/ https://www.ghacks.net/2013/12/26/hoverzooms-malware-controv... ). For high-value targets, like full access to a software developer's private github repos, there's definitely an economic incentive to do this.
jrs95 8y ago
This is the best take on the GitHub / Microsoft hysteria that I have seen. Thank you.
zerr 8y ago
Off-topic question about VSCode - it is Electron based, which was released in 2013. Now, Microsoft had/has team in Zurich, Switzerland - they've specially opened the office to hire Erich Gamma (of Eclipse and DP fame). The team led by Gamma was working on VSCode predecessor (I think), in 2011... So what happened there? Did they abandon most of the stuff and switched over Electron later?
- rhencke 8y ago
  The project was called Monaco. It was a massive success, and has since been open sourced here: https://github.com/Microsoft/monaco-editor https://github.com/Microsoft/monaco-editor Visual Studio Code joins the Monaco editor with an Electron-based environment to provide desktop text editing. That's about as opposite as abandoned as you can get.
  - tauchunfall 8y ago
    Yes. The teams at Microsoft working on VSCode are in Zurich and Seattle (AFAIK).
  - WorldMaker 8y ago
    Plus, Monaco powers more than just Visual Studio Code. Visual Studio Team Services and the Azure portal uses Monaco as editor of choice in a large number of places. Monaco powers online REPL/sandboxes such as Typescript's playground [1]. IE10+ and Edge Dev Tools are powered by Monaco (and the minimized gunk of the average random webpage sources was an early impetus for Monaco to have much of the performance we see in VS Code today). [1] https://www.typescriptlang.org/play/index.html https://www.typescriptlang.org/play/index.html
    - saagarjha 8y ago
      I think godbolt.org uses it as well.
  - zerr 8y ago
    Interesting. So the original plan was to create only an online ("in the cloud") editor?
INTPenis 8y ago
I had hoped for something more like this https://pbs.twimg.com/media/De17PIKXUAE27W6.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/De17PIKXUAE27W6.jpg:large
- setquk 8y ago
  You know I really miss the classic Windows UI. It was easy to work out what to click and what doesn’t do anything.
  - satysin 8y ago
    Agreed. Maybe I am just showing my age but I love the classic design. It was clean and crisp while still looking nice. Didn't waste space with massive controls, etc. I was never a fan of the Vista/7 looks. I am not super keen on the looks in Windows 10 but they are an improvement imho.
  - noir_lord 8y ago
    Yep, The last version of windows I used heavily was Win2k and for me that was the peak of their UI for people like us. I get the rationale behind much of what followed by every time I have to use Windows 7 I wonder what the hell they where thinking, I don't dislike Win10 (from a UI perspective) quite as much. Cinnamon/GTK (Mint-X-Sand) is still much clearer for me than Win10 though.
  - edejong 8y ago
    Yes, you would expect the armies of UX experts to be able to figure out basic consistency and discovery of components. Seems all the good UI research (using actual user experience testing) in the late 20th century has been largely forgotten.
    - bonyt 8y ago
      http://prior.sigchi.org/chi96/proceedings/desbrief/Sullivan/kds_txt.htm http://prior.sigchi.org/chi96/proceedings/desbrief/Sullivan/... is a fun read. At the time, the very concept of a UI on a computer was itself alien to many of Microsoft's target users - they did a lot of user testing to come up with what ended up in Windows 95.
tomc1985 8y ago
Fun idea. I hated that color scheme back in the day. Fischer-Price computing anyone?
- jtl999 8y ago
  Yeah. I used the classic Windows theme back in the XP days. Memories.
- kalleboo 8y ago
  At the time it seemed like a really poor and ugly attempt to rip-off Apple's OS X Aqua design. IIRC the betas had a really nice theme called "Watercolor" that I still miss. Although looking back at both designs now in 2018, those OS X pinstripes and heavy drop shadows feel way more dated than Luna's Fisher-Priceness.
ourmandave 8y ago
The only thing missing is the warning at the top that says not all features will work with your old version of Chrome. How do I know? Because I'm still one of the last people on Win XP at work. FML.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  > Because I'm still one of the last people on Win XP at work Wow, if you are in the US you should file a complaint with OSHA: https://www.osha.gov/workers/file_complaint.html https://www.osha.gov/workers/file_complaint.html
  - PhDuck 8y ago
    Is using an outdated version of windows grounds for a complaint? I don't know much about the OSHA standards, but I thought it was primarily about the safety of the lives of the workers. What part of their standard does old OS violate?
    - craftyguy 8y ago
      Using XP is bad for your (mental) health, and if you try to store sensitive information on it then it's also bad for your social and financial health too.
      - tinus_hn 8y ago
        If you pay you can still get support and security updates. It’s just outrageously expensive.
    - JayJee 8y ago
      You must be great at parties
- slig 8y ago
  Sorry about that, but Chrome auto updates for almost everyone. If you're using an old and insecure version you should know you'll experience problems.
pleaseKillMe 8y ago
It’s like Trump being elected president, except version control.
pathartl 8y ago
The spacing is all off. I get it's in jest, but it's really just not quite there. Especially the search.

209 points by vlucas 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Looks great! Love the idea. I'll buy the extension off you for $5/install count? I promise to wait at least a day before bundling malware, since you hit front page of HN there should be some great targets. /Sarcasm obviously. But there's just no way i'm installing something that can "read and change my data on github.com". Chrome extension permission granularity is just not sufficient. Especially since data exfiltration is possible using CSS only (e.g. https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/05/28/large-scale-analysis-of-style-injection-by-relative-path-overwrite/ https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/05/28/large-scale-analysis-of-... )

Mononokay 8y ago
Then install it yourself? It's open source software. Get over yourself.
creatonez 8y ago
>permission granularity is just not sufficient This is a careful balance between extensions being almost completely useless and extensions being able to take over the whole browser... Just read the source code if you don't trust it. Edit: it seems this extension has no javascript code, just stylesheets that get applied by manifest.json. Seems this actually could be a good spot for more granular permissions. "change style information on *.github.com"
- mappu 8y ago
  > Just read the source code if you don't trust it. No, that doesn't really work for Chrome extensions - they can silently auto-update, and will no longer match the published source. It's just barely possible to run the extension directly from the source code - you either need to put up with popup warnings every single time you open the browser, or, need to install an entirely separate developer version of Chrome. Certainly most people here aren't doing that. > change style information on .github.com It would be an improvement, but it turns out stylesheets can be used for malicious data exfiltration anyway (see parent).
  - creatonez 8y ago
    >No, that doesn't really work for Chrome extensions - they can silently auto-update, and will no longer match the published source. As much as I hate Google, this is exactly how most people use free software linux distributions. The only difference is the barrier of entry for new/updated software. >need to install an entirely separate developer version of Chrome Heh, I'd probably expect anyone who audits all of the software they use to already be using chromium.
    - mappu 8y ago
      The salient difference is that bribing Google or Red Hat is practically impossible (a hypothetical billion-dollar exercise reserved for state actors); whereas bribing Chrome extension developers is definitely not hypothetical, maybe even commonplace (e.g. some friends were hit by https://www.ghacks.net/2013/12/26/hoverzooms-malware-controversy-imagus-alternative/ https://www.ghacks.net/2013/12/26/hoverzooms-malware-controv... ). For high-value targets, like full access to a software developer's private github repos, there's definitely an economic incentive to do this.

jrs95 8y ago

This is the best take on the GitHub / Microsoft hysteria that I have seen. Thank you.

zerr 8y ago

Off-topic question about VSCode - it is Electron based, which was released in 2013. Now, Microsoft had/has team in Zurich, Switzerland - they've specially opened the office to hire Erich Gamma (of Eclipse and DP fame). The team led by Gamma was working on VSCode predecessor (I think), in 2011... So what happened there? Did they abandon most of the stuff and switched over Electron later?

rhencke 8y ago
The project was called Monaco. It was a massive success, and has since been open sourced here: https://github.com/Microsoft/monaco-editor https://github.com/Microsoft/monaco-editor Visual Studio Code joins the Monaco editor with an Electron-based environment to provide desktop text editing. That's about as opposite as abandoned as you can get.
- tauchunfall 8y ago
  Yes. The teams at Microsoft working on VSCode are in Zurich and Seattle (AFAIK).
- WorldMaker 8y ago
  Plus, Monaco powers more than just Visual Studio Code. Visual Studio Team Services and the Azure portal uses Monaco as editor of choice in a large number of places. Monaco powers online REPL/sandboxes such as Typescript's playground [1]. IE10+ and Edge Dev Tools are powered by Monaco (and the minimized gunk of the average random webpage sources was an early impetus for Monaco to have much of the performance we see in VS Code today). [1] https://www.typescriptlang.org/play/index.html https://www.typescriptlang.org/play/index.html
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    I think godbolt.org uses it as well.
- zerr 8y ago
  Interesting. So the original plan was to create only an online ("in the cloud") editor?

INTPenis 8y ago

I had hoped for something more like this https://pbs.twimg.com/media/De17PIKXUAE27W6.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/De17PIKXUAE27W6.jpg:large

setquk 8y ago
You know I really miss the classic Windows UI. It was easy to work out what to click and what doesn’t do anything.
- satysin 8y ago
  Agreed. Maybe I am just showing my age but I love the classic design. It was clean and crisp while still looking nice. Didn't waste space with massive controls, etc. I was never a fan of the Vista/7 looks. I am not super keen on the looks in Windows 10 but they are an improvement imho.
- noir_lord 8y ago
  Yep, The last version of windows I used heavily was Win2k and for me that was the peak of their UI for people like us. I get the rationale behind much of what followed by every time I have to use Windows 7 I wonder what the hell they where thinking, I don't dislike Win10 (from a UI perspective) quite as much. Cinnamon/GTK (Mint-X-Sand) is still much clearer for me than Win10 though.
- edejong 8y ago
  Yes, you would expect the armies of UX experts to be able to figure out basic consistency and discovery of components. Seems all the good UI research (using actual user experience testing) in the late 20th century has been largely forgotten.
  - bonyt 8y ago
    http://prior.sigchi.org/chi96/proceedings/desbrief/Sullivan/kds_txt.htm http://prior.sigchi.org/chi96/proceedings/desbrief/Sullivan/... is a fun read. At the time, the very concept of a UI on a computer was itself alien to many of Microsoft's target users - they did a lot of user testing to come up with what ended up in Windows 95.

tomc1985 8y ago

Fun idea. I hated that color scheme back in the day. Fischer-Price computing anyone?

jtl999 8y ago
Yeah. I used the classic Windows theme back in the XP days. Memories.
kalleboo 8y ago
At the time it seemed like a really poor and ugly attempt to rip-off Apple's OS X Aqua design. IIRC the betas had a really nice theme called "Watercolor" that I still miss. Although looking back at both designs now in 2018, those OS X pinstripes and heavy drop shadows feel way more dated than Luna's Fisher-Priceness.

ourmandave 8y ago

The only thing missing is the warning at the top that says not all features will work with your old version of Chrome. How do I know? Because I'm still one of the last people on Win XP at work. FML.

craftyguy 8y ago
> Because I'm still one of the last people on Win XP at work Wow, if you are in the US you should file a complaint with OSHA: https://www.osha.gov/workers/file_complaint.html https://www.osha.gov/workers/file_complaint.html
- PhDuck 8y ago
  Is using an outdated version of windows grounds for a complaint? I don't know much about the OSHA standards, but I thought it was primarily about the safety of the lives of the workers. What part of their standard does old OS violate?
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    Using XP is bad for your (mental) health, and if you try to store sensitive information on it then it's also bad for your social and financial health too.
    - tinus_hn 8y ago
      If you pay you can still get support and security updates. It’s just outrageously expensive.
  - JayJee 8y ago
    You must be great at parties
slig 8y ago
Sorry about that, but Chrome auto updates for almost everyone. If you're using an old and insecure version you should know you'll experience problems.

pleaseKillMe 8y ago

It’s like Trump being elected president, except version control.

pathartl 8y ago

The spacing is all off. I get it's in jest, but it's really just not quite there. Especially the search.