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PuTTY has a new website
- IT4MD 1y agoI disagree with their approach for the obvious reasons. I work in OPs and use Putty daily. For people like me, finding and downloading the correct app is simple. For non-technicals, this just seems like the perfect way to download malware and destroy a company's reputation. Puzzling, imo.
- tux2bsd 1y ago[dead]
- josephcsible 1y agoThis seemed suspicious at first, but https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ (the original official site) confirms it's real.
- dcrazy 1y agoFirst thing I thought of was JiaTan75’s pushing of a new website for XZ.
- pharrington 1y agoThe man himself also posted about it on his social media https://hachyderm.io/@simontatham/115025974777386803 https://hachyderm.io/@simontatham/115025974777386803
- throaway920181 1y agoCool, but hachyderm.io also is not a trusted/recognizable domain for me. Trust issues all the way down!
- andrewflnr 1y agoIt's definitionally the correct domain for Simon Tatham's social media. What are you expecting here?
- closewith 1y agoHow would the average person know that?
- viraptor 1y agoAverage person aware of trust on social network / internet - because https://hachyderm.io/@simontatham https://hachyderm.io/@simontatham has a validated link to the author's homepage. Others - they don't understand the trust anyway, so there prerequisite steps missing before the main question anyway.
- jstanley 1y agohachyderm.io says it has a validated link to his homepage, but if you don't already trust hachyderm.io that means nothing.
- viraptor 1y agoIt means a lot - you need to check the other side's meta to confirm yourself. https://fedi.tips/how-do-i-verify-my-account/ https://fedi.tips/how-do-i-verify-my-account/
- mjmas 1y agoFor example, at https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/ https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/ : (the rel=me is the important part) [...] <a rel="me" href="https://hachyderm.io/@simontatham"> [...]
- closewith 1y agoNo, it really means nothing. Identity on the internet is not a solved problem.
- jachee 1y agoSo… what would be a trusted domain, for you, then?
- zaphirplane 1y agohttps://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
- zugi 1y agoExactly. Which nicely confirms all this by saying: Latest news 2025-08-14 New website, putty.software We have a new domain name for the PuTTY website! ...
- cyphar 1y agoWhich is what the original response linked to. :P
- roman_soldier 1y agoWhat if someone hacked his site and inserted that news item? Better to visit the guy in person and verify.
- rzzzt 1y agoWhat if someone planted the idea of adding a new website for the project while he was asleep?
- RainyDayTmrw 1y agoAs much as I like fedi, it does make it hard to understand which user on which instance is the correct one.
- pferde 1y agoLuckily, fediverse has an account-to-website verification feature, see https://joinmastodon.org/verification https://joinmastodon.org/verification . Mr. Tatham's account on hachyderm.io uses it, so we can be reasonably certain that it's the correct account for him.
- ChrisArchitect 1y agoWow the way the new page text was written still had me guessing. Maybe just call this the Future Home of Putty or something with a big link to the official page. I suppose word will get around pretty fast but still.
- Y_Y 1y ago> Unlike other landing pages, this one is run by the PuTTY team itself, and not by a third party with their own agenda. No idea what this means. Anyway Simon Tatham's games are so good I think he gets a pass on anything else he does.
- dgl 1y agoI don’t really want to give it credit by linking to it, but this seems to refer to putty[.]org which is using its search ranking to push things unrelated to PuTTY.
- CaliforniaKarl 1y agoSee https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44558328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44558328 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44579265 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44579265 for background.
- naniwaduni 1y agoContext: "The domain name putty.org is NOT run by the #PuTTY developers" (https://hachyderm.io/@simontatham/114846017785770922 https://hachyderm.io/@simontatham/114846017785770922 discussed before at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44558328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44558328), but by a competitor who historically used the site at that domain to promote their own product.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- GeneralMayhem 1y agoIt's much weirder now. The current holder of that domain is using it to host a single page that pushes anti-vax nonsense under the guise of fighting censorship... but also links to the actual PuTTY site. Very weird mix of maybe-well-meaning and nonsense.
- kahirsch 1y agoThe guy behind that page and bitvise appears to have gone totally crazy during the pandemic. On his blog, he said in 2021 "I forecast that 2/3 of those who accept Covid vaccines are going to die by January 1, 2025." And in 2022, he wrote "Covid-19 is mostly snake venom added to drinking water in selected locations. There may also be a virus, but the main vehicle of hospitalizations is boatloads of powder, mixed in during 'water treatment.' Remdesivir, the main treatment for Covid, is injected snake venom. mRNA vaccines hijack your body to make more snake venom."
- taraindara 1y agoWill putty ever reach 1.0?
- yazantapuz 1y agoI hope they only change the domain name, and keep the spartan websiste.
- nine_k 1y agoThe regular page looks designed by the rules of the earliest version of HTML from 1993: no colors, no fonts, no graphics; it could be a port of a Gopher page. But the new landing page goes all the way to 1995, with fancy custom link colors, and colorful bitmap graphics!
- aembleton 1y agoThe new one even has CSS making it much more modern.
- MortyWaves 1y agoEver since Windows gained Terminal and OpenSSH, my usage of Putty has almost entirely ceased except for serial for embedded systems work. Then I realised Putty ships with a CLI version which I now use in Terminal for accessing serial.
- oguz-ismail 1y ago> Terminal Have they fixed font rendering yet? cmd.exe looks better on my laptop
- MortyWaves 1y agoI’ve never noticed any issues on any computer with it…
- recursive 1y agoThe first time I ever saw it, the text already looked better than cmd.exe via conhost.
- oguz-ismail 1y agohttps://imgur.com/a/qA1fr71 https://imgur.com/a/qA1fr71 Something wrong with my eyes? Doesn't cmd.exe look smoother in this screenshot?
- MortyWaves 1y agoI find the Terminal more readable because the white seems brighter in your screenshots
- layer8 1y agoThe color is configurable for both.
- mvdtnz 1y agoTerminal looks far better.
- userbinator 1y agoSomehow, these new long TLDs just feel spammy and "fake" and I usually ignore them when they show up in search results. Unfortunately the .com, .net and .org are already taken.
- account42 1y ago> Unfortunately the .com, .net and .org are already taken. Even a .com/org/net with something like getputty or similar as the domain name would feel less sketchy than putty.sofware. putty.net is also up for sale but probably will be an unreasonable price and paying the troll toll would suck.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- TZubiri 1y agoCertificate by Let's Encrypt, issued to "putty.software" no other info. Sometimes I feel like we are training users to disregard safety mechanisms for phishing. Using putty was never the pinnacle of professionalism and open source auditing anyway, it's just a binary you download on windows before you hear the gospel of linux and ssh.
- nottorp 1y agoI'm sure you could ask Mr Tatham to offer a version with feel-good certificates for the low low price of a couple Silicon Valley lattes per month...
- account42 1y ago> Certificate by Let's Encrypt, issued to "putty.software" no other info. That's how domain validated certificates that are used on most website today work. And yes, it's bonkers that we need to rely on authorities like Let's Encrypt for this instead of just delegating trust via the same hierarchy as DNS.
- akoboldfrying 1y ago> Using putty was never the pinnacle of professionalism and open source auditing anyway Huh? The source is available on the original site and TTBOMK always has been, you're welcome to compile it yourself.
- wainguo 1y agowow! I used PuTTY about 18 years ago.
- eviks 1y agoAt least it’s readable on a phone with text reflowing unlike the main site, although there is no text to read, so not much of a win…
- dlcarrier 1y agoSimon Tatham's most important work is keeping its page: https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/ https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/ Try Mines, you never have to guess.
- vovavili 1y agoThis is a perfect version of the game, nice.
- bayindirh 1y agoThat's a great variation of the game. Thanks for sharing the page. It's a gem!
- zvr 1y agoThe first thing I install in every Android device.
- ycuser2 1y agoI love these kind of webpages with little programs to discover.
- 3836293648 1y agoIf you never have to guess there must be one more strategy to figuring it out I've never seen anyone mention, because I frequently get stuck with two options on the very hardest difficulty.
- genrilz 1y agoOne non-obvious strategy is that the number of mines that are left on the field is known. Especially near the end, this can break a tie between two patterns of mines.
- 3836293648 1y agoI thought of that but it hasn't been enough for me. Or I'm bad at counting
- ChrisArchitect 1y agoRelated recent context/controversy that maybe fueled some of this: putty.org is not run by the PuTTY developers https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44558328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44558328 Hijacking Trust? Bitvise Under Fire for Controlling Domain of FOSS Project PuTTY https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44579265 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44579265
- ozim 1y agoSince windows started shipping open ssh I don’t have any use for putty.
- nereid 1y ago[flagged]
- kmoser 1y agohttps://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ says: 2025-08-14 New website, putty.software
- flowerthoughts 1y agoIs it just me that feels www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ has some kind of sentimental value? I built a locked-down version fof PuTTY for their termainl-based (book) library system in 1998. It's been with me a long time.
- thristian 1y agoFrom the PuTTY FAQ: https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/faq.html#faq-domain https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/faq.html#... Would you like me to register you a nicer domain name? No, thank you. Even if you can find one (most of them seem to have been registered already, by people who didn't ask whether we actually wanted it before they applied), we're happy with the PuTTY web site being exactly where it is. It's not hard to find (just type ‘putty’ into google.com and we're the first link returned), and we don't believe the administrative hassle of moving the site would be worth the benefit. I wonder if they changed their mind because Google ceased to be a reliable way to find them.
- ahmedfromtunis 1y agoThe first link I get when I searched for "putty" was `putty.org` which, according to the footer: "The PuTTY project or its authors have never owned this domain, registered it, or purchased it." Nevertheless, I can't consider relying on probabilistic algorithms controlled by 3rd parties to be a wise strategy. Also, these days, after decades of habit building and a rise in awareness about scam-related stuff, I think people expect to see the name of the project early on in the URL, not in 7th position as it is currently.
- swah 1y agoMy first 3 matches are https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/latest.html https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/latest.ht..., https://www.putty.org/ https://www.putty.org/ and https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
- JdeBP 1y agoputty.org's page ranking used to be higher. * https://hachyderm.io/@simontatham/115027646348662282 https://hachyderm.io/@simontatham/115027646348662282 I suspect that the recent kerfuffle motivated people to finally clean out bogus hyperlinks that casually listed putty.org as the download site, which would have been contributing to inflated page rank up to that point. I found one on a wiki and fixed it, myself, and I'm sure that I was not the only person who went looking.
- gjvc 1y agoJFC I wish they would stop using Courier as the default font. It's like looking down the barrels of a shotgun. Consolas ftw.
- blueflow 1y agoI like Courier. Are we gonna bash our heads in and argue over personal preferences?
- GloriousMEEPT 1y agoWhat else is there to do? We live in an era where there's nothing left to talk about except gpu enabled terminal emulators and how much capitalism sucks
- mappu 1y agoOne assumes PuTTY uses Courier as the default font because it was the default monospace font on Windows at the time of release (1999). But Consolas has been the replacement default since Vista (2006). It is a reasonable change to make. Do the rest of their native Win32 UI controls still use MS Sans Serif (Windows 98) or Tahoma (XP) instead of Segoe UI (Vista)?
- evrennetwork 1y ago[dead]
- Simon_O_Rourke 1y agoThank you PuTTY for saving my butt so many times in archaic security-theatre companies who would block all ssh apps except leave the PuTTY website and downloads still available.
- roguebloodrage 1y ago[flagged]
- userbinator 1y agoYes, the domain was suspicious to me too, but the legit site links back to it.
- Geezus_42 1y agoTo be fair, the WinSCP website looks like a scam site.
- layer8 1y agoBrowsers have been giving you the ability to view what the actual link URL is since forever.
- account42 1y agoBrowsers have also been giving websites the ability to do something completely different on click since forever unless you disable javascript.
- yreg 1y agoThere is the homograph attack, but browsers do their best to mitigate it nowadays. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDN_homograph_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDN_homograph_attack
- CRConrad 1y ago[dead]
- dang 1y agoYour account has been egregiously breaking the site guidelines lately. If you keep this up, we're going to have to ban you. I don't want to ban you because you've also posted good things, but this is really bad. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- blue1 1y agoI see no mention in this thread of KiTTY <https://www.9bis.net/kitty/ https://www.9bis.net/kitty/>, no one uses this instead of PuTTY?
- bayindirh 1y agoI'm sure it's a great piece of software, but sometimes, the simpler is better. I used PuTTY for a decade or so, and while it was kinda ugly and clunky, it's very beautiful and perfect because of its imperfections.
- userbinator 1y agoWhen the first sentence on the page is "This website requires Javascript to be enabled.", I leave; but not before looking at the source and discovering a relative monstrosity, unlike the original PuTTY site which is almost pure content.
- JdeBP 1y agoThere are two pieces of software named Kitty. That one is the other one. (-:
- Geezus_42 1y agoI used to. Being able to store all my configs in simple text files that I could easily move from machine to machine was the killer feature for me.
- Squarex 1y agoLittle bit unrelated, but it is super annoying that this site breaks back button in browser.
- someodd 1y agoI was expecting a modern redesign when I read the headline, but I was so delighted to be greeted by such a nostalgic style! Cheers to decades of memories with PuTTY!
- thrown-0825 1y agoWhat is the point of PuTTY these days?
- kahlonel 1y agoPuTTY was the first tool I ever used to SSH into a machine. My mind was blown when me and my friend wrote to the same file and could see each other’s sentences.
- indigodaddy 1y agoNot sure what all the negative comments are trying to accomplish. It's a perfect and simple little landing page. Simon has finally done what everyone has been asking for, so why are some people still complaining and harping about "trust" ? Get a grip.
- account42 1y agoI'm not sure what comments about sentiment in a thread are trying to accomplish. Maybe reply to specific comments you object to.
- roguebloodrage 1y ago[flagged]
- nulbyte 1y agoIt is. The very first news item on the original page mentions it. It's plain as 1993.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- JdeBP 1y agoI rather enjoyed the suggestion that the new WWW site could retain the flavour of the old, for the Unix shell syntax diehards. (-: * https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@thomastc/115031906344758192 https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@thomastc/115031906344758192
- horizion2025 1y agoHi that sad. I remember years ago sitting with a colleague and we had to download putty. Then we found the usual page. There is always the concern if it is legit or a fake site with malware. But I remember my colleague saying "it has to be genuine, only a computer scientist could make such a primitive web site"
- IshKebab 1y agolol is this a joke? Why are the screenshots blurry and miniscule? And randomly spaced in the middle of the page. Come on, even ChatGPT can do a better job than this.
- nilslindemann 1y agoThese useless mini screenshots.
- indigodaddy 1y agoI think they were just trying to fill out the page a little bit.
- nilslindemann 1y agoWell, they say that they are planning to move everything to this page, so I guess it's just temporary.
- spicyusername 1y agoIt's incredible to me that this tool is still needed. Using putty as my daily driver was definitely part of my coming-of-age story as a windows sysadmin way back when.
- password4321 1y agoI'm pretty sure PuTTY is no longer needed needed except possibly as a user mode pageant.
- accrual 1y agoAs far as I know it's still one of the best ways to handle serial connections on Windows, and a surprising amount stuff still supports or defaults to serial. Great for managing headless OpenBSD systems.
- layer8 1y agoIt’s not needed on modern Windows strictly speaking, but many users still prefer it.
- snvzz 1y agoIt requires an extra click to get to the actual website. PuTTY's website is fairly clean and accessible, unlike this landing page.
- Narishma 1y agoThe page is temporary, until the website is moved there.
- mekster 1y agoCome on, AI can make a better looking site in 10 minutes these days.
- account42 1y agoCan it also make a comment that doesn't need to mention the latest unrelated fad?
- torginus 1y agoI like putty, by for the sake for all that is holy, why doesn't it take .pem keys?
- esskay 1y agoThats a blast from the past, I'd completely forgotten about putty (moved away from Windows when Vista came out). The pain of SSH on an OS that seems to be intentionally made to be as clunky as hell for developers however is never something I'll miss.
- accrual 1y agoIt's kinda wild it took until part way through Windows 10's life to get an integrated SSH client. Even then it had to be downloaded from the store. I believe it's a native part of Windows 11 now. I'm pretty happy with Windows Terminal these days, but before then, it was all PuTTY + SecureCRT.
- bdavbdav 1y agoGenuine question ( I avoid windows) is putty still necessary now that WSL is a thing?
- simcop2387 1y agoSometimes, lots of companies will lock down WSL and similar because they can't as easily control what's running in it for security or policy reasons. In those cases putting would be easier to audit and deal with since it's much more single purpose
- jddecker 1y agoThe OpenSSH SSH client has been included in Windows as default since 2018, so you don't even need WSL to use it anymore. Just open a terminal and type ssh just like you would in Linux.
- stephenlf 1y agoOpenSSL was available on Windows even before WSL.
- II2II 1y agoWindows has shipped with OpenSSH (client and server) for years. Windows Terminal has also been available for years, and now ships with Windows. So you do not need PuTTY. That said, some people like PuTTY. It is much easier to setup and use. It also offers other features (like serial communications).
- tonymet 1y agoPutty is obsolete for SSH terminals, but is still useful for serial terminals (like when you need to flash a bricked router ) Putty is a terminal emulator and an SSH + telnet client all in one. Now Microsoft offers a number of platforms that overlap to provide similar functionality. WSL2 (aka WSL) is the Linux system that runs a Linux kernel and apps within Windows (technically a hidden HyperV VM) with some loose bindings to the OS resources for networking, files etc. OpenSSH is the SSH client installed with Windows. It can be used via CMD or Windows Terminal + Powershell . You don’t need WSL installed. So it’s great for VMs or remote shells. Powershell is the Windows Shell (like bash on Linux or CMD on earlier windows) that lets you run openssh and other windows CLI Apps Windows Terminal is the new-ish (6+ years) terminal emulator that lets you run a variety of shells. Most commonly Powershell , Bash (WSL), or you can SSH to any host using openssh . It works like tmux with tabs/windows into any remote host . I decided to lay this all out because Windows apps for SSH and terminals are a little different than Linux.
- InsomniacL 1y agoPuTTY's use of an antiquated website, bizzarro url and difficult to find binaries has created trust issues for no apparent good reason.
- demetris 1y agoWhy is the website antiquated and the URL bizarro? The homepage and the downloads page both seem fine to me. (BTW, the collection of one-player puzzle games is super!)
- brettermeier 1y agoBecause it looks very ugly and has (had...) a non-rememberable URL.
- conorcleary 1y agoWhat if Linus is serious about IPv4?
- lttlrck 1y agoHow strange. It's just an interstitial to the main websites that look less sketchy to my eyes.