Welcome to this week’s The Programmer’s Fulcrum.

It’s your weekly curation of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Open Social development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism.

As usual, we aim to provide actionable content you can use to destroy Techno Feudalism each week. It has the additional benefit of weakening authoritarianism.

IMHO, the best way to do that is to use tools from the Techno Anarchist Manifesto to build your own site(s) to participate in the Open Media Network. Then you should share it (them) via Real Simple Syndication (RSS), Open Social, and possibly a newsletter or podcast. This approach is similar to what some call the IndieWeb and its POSSE philosophy.

The second best strategy is to have accounts on open social and use the hell out of them. And do the same with a RSS feed reader.

We publish TPF on Fridays so you can enjoy it over your weekend.

There’s good stuff in all of our categories, so please take the time to enjoy and bookmark the items most relevant to your goals. We hope you are inspired to create new ones.

Or you can scroll down to your favorite section.

FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And may involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck´em.

This week marks the beginning of the earliest incarnation of this site, Symfony Station. It also began our cross-posting to Dev.to. That was five years ago when mass enshittification and AI menacingly loomed just over the horizon. The reason I had gone to web development bootcamp was that I knew they were coming and needed some skills to fight them.

Personally, I’m in a better place now. But, unfortunately tech isn’t despite our efforts here. So, let’s kick it up a notch.

Featured Item(s)

Sabot Media writes:

For twenty-five years, Autistici / Inventati showed what it could mean for movements to build and control their own communications infrastructure. Its loss should not send everyone searching for the next single service to replace it.

It should send us looking in a hundred directions.

A/I may be ending. The story is nowhere near over.

This is what we preach weekly.

Brennan Day writes:

We can create a more human web right now. The world is in dire straits …

There are those who see the act of webmastery as “only” a hobby and pastime—and I say this is not mutually exclusive to world-saving. The personal is political. Our ability to maintain our joy and ourselves is, itself, resistance.

Start as you are, with what you have, while you still have time to do so.

Exercise your innate human right to create.

Be a developer. Be a designer. Be a writer. Be a systems administrator. Be a philosopher. Be a Webmaster.

It is the most punk rock, anti-establishment, liberating thing you can do in the 21st century. And yeah, it is fucking awesome.

WEBMASTER@ a manifesto for everyone

We also preach this weekly.

Simon Tisdall writes:

It’s no surprise some analysts say we are already in the midst of the third world war, but ordinary people have more power than we think.

The world is being driven to the brink by thugs and dictators, but there is a route to a brighter future

Wow, this is depressing up till the last 2 paragraphs. But, we have to keep fighting in order to preserve our sanity.

So, read from here till the end of the TAM and do your part to unfuck the world.

CMSs

Soulcruzer says:

Take back the web. Make it weird again

Bob Sassone’s site’s 30th Anniversary inspired their article.

And it’s truly inspiring. Great to see.

Unfortunately, Cavalette shows us:

How to to back up your data (currently) on A/I services

The type of post you never hope to see. Fuck all the Trump clowns and cunts.

There’s a new ATProto competitor for Ghost and Substack:

Writizzy

Non-opensource and similar to Offprint. But, non-AI and European.

WordPress

I will be at WordCamp Bretagne next week (mainly to scout Renne as a summer home) so say bonjour si vous sont cette-la. Sessions that I will definitely attend include the Gutenberg, Web Spaghetti, and Integrations ones.

It will be interesting to see what everyone thinks of Matt getting thrown out of AutoMattic on his ass.

Ghost

Spectral Web Services explores:

Avoiding duplicates on complicated homepages

Back to top 👆🏼

Tools

Framablog has a book review:

Publication : Alternatives & Struggles

Chat / Team Chat

About Signal reports:

Signal now lets you record much longer videos in the app

Movim announces:

Movim 0.35 “Thiele” is out!

Browsers

Waterfox announces:

6.7.2 — Improvements to tree tabs and the vertical sidebar

There are similar improvements in its Android app.

Search

Xamanismo Coletivo shares:

One guy in Sweden built a search engine to fight Google, and it works

Cloud

Nextcloud shows us:

How to set up UnifiedPush on Android for Nextcloud Talk: push notifications without Google Play Services

Tuta examines:

Tuta Mail, Tuta Calendar, & Tuta Drive: Development steps

Writing

Joplin explains:

What’s new in Joplin 3.7

You can publish a notebook as a website now.

On a related note, Glyphack has:

Share Obsidian Notes To A Blog

Creative

Libre shares:

Announcing Plasma Studio

GIMP announces:

GIMP 3.2.6 Released

Linux / Open Android

Fedilab Apps says:

Choose F-Droid

Fuck Google.

Alternative To reports:

GrapheneOS plans to overhaul the bundled AOSP apps, including messaging with RCS support

This week’s featured OMN tool

BentoPDF

The PDF Toolkit built for privacy is now opensource.

BentoPDF

Back to top 👆🏼

Programming

Sage Journals published:

‘Digital Public Infrastructure’: Cultural hegemony and states’ technological dependence

As this and the A / I situation demonstrate, we need to build our own infrastructure. So, pay attention to our More section each week.

Fedilab Apps shares:

So Google refuses to delete my dev account

Terence Eden says:

The purpose of DNS is to spread scams

Ah, our online companions: techno feudalists, techno fascists, AI and Crypto Bros, and (the most honest) criminals.

On a related note, Erlend Sogge Heggen says:

Making software hurts now

That’s because unregulated capitalism will @$$-fuck up any and everything.

David Bushell exposes:

CodePen: exposed!

Tongue-in-cheek. 😉

Henri Bergius goes EUPL:

I changed my license

Git

Justin Wernick is:

Saying Goodbye To My Git Server’s CGit Frontend

HTML

Jens Oliver Meiert reports:

2026: 2 of the Global Top 200 Websites Use Valid HTML

Since most “developers” are tech and AI bros, this tracks. Unfortunately.

CSS

Lea Verou says:

The best dark mode toggle is probably none

And the best dark mode is light mode.

Web Awesome thinks:

Your Design System Should Style Your Words, Too

Web Components

Master.dev explores:

Custom Scrollbar Component In 2026

JavaScript

And:

React Now Rusted All The Way Out

It speeds up React builds. What speeds things up even more is not using the horseshit at all.

Other

Benjamin Eberlei examines:

PHP to get the job done in 2026

Interesting and the most important point is this:

A second major benefit of PHP is its completly open governance model, its truly free software without corporate interests in control. As my friend Sebastian recently wrote: Digital Sovereignty is written in PHP.

In regards to ethical AI use in PHP, I wrote this article about it.

Sourcehut has:

Changes to SourceHut’s terms of service regarding LLMs

Fantastic!

Forgejo announces:

Forgejo Runner v13.1.0 is available

Forgejo 16.0.4 and 15.0.8 were just released

XWiki has:

July and August Pro Apps updates

Release Notes for XWiki 17.10.13

OpenProject announces:

OpenProject integration app for Nextcloud released in versions 3.2.0 and 2.12.0

This week’s featured programming tool

Twig

Twig is the fast, flexible, and secure modern template engine for PHP.

Twig

Back to top 👆🏼

ActivityPub

The Social Web Incubator Community Group (SWICG) works on ActivityPub standards:

Current SWICG Task Forces and their deliverables

It’s slow as fuck. But, at least its moving forward now. The end to end encryption, groups, and forums efforts are vital.

Matthias Pfefferle notes:

FEP-d1cb: Same-origin actor re-identification

Matthias does the most impactful work in the AP community IMHO. We need 200 more of him.

Terence Eden asks:

ActivityPub – Is it worth defending against replay attacks and message/signature time skew?

Spielleitung shares how to block a registration bot:

Prevent “BoomProtocolProbe” from registering

This week’s featured ActivityPub featured tool

Starling

Starling is an ActivityPub server that can actually exchange posts, follows, profiles, replies, likes, and boosts across the Fediverse with Mastodon, Misskey, Pleroma, GoToSocial, PixelFed, and other ActivityPub-compatible platforms.

Starling

Back to top 👆🏼

Permanent aside here (unfortunately)

This is a perpetual pet peeve because many people aren’t able to comprehend ⬇️:

• The Fediverse is for communities (private, semi-private, formal, informal, or otherwise)
• and the Atmosphere is for the masses (unwashed, washed, or otherwise).
• and corporate social media is for naive fools and intentional cunts.

So, recognize their natures and don’t ask the two protocols to go against them. This is also why we have accounts on both platforms and use them differently.

Fediverse

IFTAS has:

Updates to IFTAS Denylists and Access Options

Bonfire

Bonfire presents:

Sovereignty Is More Than a Server: Public Digital Commons with Bonfire

Back to top 👆🏼

More

ATProto

Jola.dev looks at:

Migrating your Bluesky account the hard way

Building AT Habitat shares:

Habitat’s road to release: 05 adopting opensocial

This appears to be a promising Atmosphere alternative to my Manade project.

Speaking of, atproto-spaces-alpha-updates has an update:

Breaking Changes around the simplespace API

Erlend Sogge Heggen explores:

Atmospheric events commons

Atmosphere

Aaron Ross Powell examines:

Social Media and Anti-Social Pluralism

Which is why we need more private autonomous online communities. That’s what I’m exploring with Manade.

MeTacheles has:

W Social Netzwerk: Fake-Zahlen, Rassismus und Totenstille!

Plus there’s this kind of horseshit:

You can’t currently move from/to W without help from a dev

You may have to be logged into the Atmosphere to see this. Anyway, if you are a mark that got grifted into W, just delete you account. Hopefully, no one will ever find out you signed up. Except every company they will share your information with.

Atmosphere Conference News announces:

AtmosphereConf 2027 Organizing is Underway

Happening somewhere in Europe. ???

RSS

Bunnies in PCKT says:

RSS is still my preferred feed format

Mon aussi.

FreshRSS announces:

FreshRSS 1.30.0

Democracy Tech

Internet Exchange looks at:

Building Online Communities We Can Keep

CTAs

• That’s it for this week. Please share The Programmer’s Fulcrum.
• Follow us on Surf or at @thefulcrum@thefulcrum.dev on the Fediverse or at @thefulcrum.eurosky.social on the Atmosphere for daily coverage.
• Read, live, and share The Techno Anarchist Manifesto!

And please build something for a community! We’re painfully nurturing Manade.

Blasts from the past

Previous Battalion Posts

Previous Symfony Station Posts

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