this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2026
113 points (100.0% liked)

Ask Lemmy

39360 readers
1243 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Have you ever found a GitHub project or anything that seemed nice and tempting to install until you dug a bit deeper?

What are some red flags that should detur anyone from installing and running something?

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world 4 points 8 hours ago

The project is requires really weird unconventional set up. Doesn't package properly, configuration files in weird places, doesn't follow convention but doesn't gain anything from it

[–] CCMan1701A@startrek.website 2 points 9 hours ago

Runs on Windows CE

[–] Blaster_M@lemmy.world 11 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

"This project has been archived on [10+ years ago]. It is now Read Only."

or

Last commit 5+ years ago

[–] anon_8675309@lemmy.world 8 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Depends. Software can be done.

[–] sneezycat@sopuli.xyz 0 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 47 minutes ago)
[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 7 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (3 children)

Requires weird IDE to build

I shifted 8 GB of files to an older machine just to be able to install Android Studio on barely-supported hardware, and now I'm cloning the repo and the .gradle directory alone is 1 GB?

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago

I bet they checked in the binary. Git is really poor with binaries since it can’t really diff them. And the worst part is gradle should never have the binary in the source tree

[–] boraginoru@lemmy.zip 1 points 10 hours ago

You don't even need to check in .gradle to a repo, I always have that gitignored. And gradle projects should specify commands to build from CLI rather than having you download an IDE. Android Studio gives you a nice run button but it's just invoking ./gradlew installDebug under the hood

[–] thebustinater@lemmy.zip 1 points 12 hours ago

I'm amused that you mentioned requiring an IDE and then gave gradle (a standalone build tool) and Android as an example... when I'm pretty sure that ios actually requires xcode (AND an apple account) to build apps

[–] Vex_Detrause@lemmy.ca 4 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

When installing if I see a pre-checked check mark I will be more likely to read what the software is trying to install. What are you trying to install now?

[–] the_grass_trainer@lemmy.world 13 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Signing-in before being able to use a FREE software.

-glares at Canva after buying Affinity -

[–] ParadoxSeahorse@lemmy.world 4 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

That’s why they bought it

[–] the_grass_trainer@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, but it's still irritating. The only function they added to the software that i use is Image Trace. Otherwise i still use the old Affinity Designer that i bought years ago.

[–] ParadoxSeahorse@lemmy.world 4 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Serif were always great, I’m a bit doom and gloom on it

[–] rodneylives@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

A rule of thumb I use is how desperate the software is to tell you the weather even when you never asked for it or even set it up to report it.

[–] prenatal_confusion@feddit.org 3 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

No stars (although easily manipulated)

No commit history

No issue history

No pr requests (soft no)

No contributions from people with a active history

[–] VitoRobles@lemmy.today 3 points 20 hours ago

Something I do is if a project has way too many stars, click on a few of the names randomly.

If those profiles have 0-1 projects, my yellow flag (not red flag) goes up. Because yeah, it's really easy to buy GitHub stars now.

[–] mech@feddit.org 50 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 6 points 15 hours ago

I can’t believe that marketing people are this fucking stupid.

Like, full-on knuckle-dragging morons.

They intentionally drive away more paying customers than they could ever “channelize” with this method.

Because most people realize that prices are only ever hidden for malicious, anti-consumer purposes.

[–] osanna@lemmy.vg 15 points 1 day ago

Aaaaaand tab closed.

load more comments
view more: next ›