The Programmer's Fulcrum 7 August, 2026

This post originally appeared on The Fulcrum.

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 jump straight to your favorite section.

Sites/Blogs/CMSs

Techno Anarchist / OMN Tools

OMN Programming

ActivityPub

Fediverse

More

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

Featured Item(s)

We're tooting our horn this week. In our latest article, I wrote:

In this article we will cover a simple, DIY strategy. In particular, it's about what I call the 4Rs of web development. They are empowering, reduce frustration, and help you feel good about your work (and yourself).

And there's the added benefit that this work strategy thwarts democracy and planet destroying tech bros, oligarchs, and autocrats.

Working with the 4Rs of Web Development

FYI, it also contains a spiky anti-AI rant.

On related note number 1, The Nerve reports:

Cory Doctorow: The people who tell you ‘AI is changing everything’ are lying

On related note number 2, The Guardian has a book review of Gil Durán's:

The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy. The book’s central argument is that big tech is no longer our friend, as many of its billionaire owners have seized economic and political control and are steering the fate of the planet towards their own bizarre, apocalyptic visions.

Gil says (the question now), “is how we turn the momentum in our favour and against the billionaires. Because they have a plan to win. They think they’re going to succeed.”

This could be a radicalising moment: “In fighting against billionaire power, we find the key to all of our problems. Every moment is an important opportunity to wake people up and to start to fight back.”

If not, he says, we’ll find ourselves in a situation where “we don’t have democracy, we don’t have an economy and we don’t have a future. If that doesn’t radicalise people, then we deserve what we’re going to get.”

‘If we don’t fight back, we don’t have a future’: the journalist taking on the ‘tech fascists’ of Silicon Valley

This is what we have been covering for years. And literally the reason for suffering through a coding bootcamp in 2018 so I could better understand the programming side of this evil.

CMSs

Telex reports:

Nearly 500-page document details manipulation of news at Hungarian state news agency during Orbán era

Protocols for Publishers interviews:

Mike Masnick on protocols for publishers

Simon Repp announces:

The fifth beta release for Faircamp 2.0 is now available

IndieWeb

Nothing to See Here explores:

Publishing websites on Freenet

I was "this week" years old when I learned about the peer to peer site builders Freenet and Delta .

So, I started The Fulcrum 3 on Delta to experiment (it just has our articles, so no posts). If you have Freenet installed and running, I think you can see it here . Or type EMWvaZfLnK in the Delta interface . Maybe. ;)

By the way, these P2P tools definitely use the 4Rs (after setup). Not that it would be simple for many people to find and read their creations. It's definitely for private sites (used by tech-savvy individuals), which is probably a good thing. ;)

Brennan Kenneth Brown examines:

Phoneblogging

Ghost

Magic Pages asks:

Staging site or a local copy?

I am sharing this as a reference for myself. ;)

BTW, I am going to go one more year with Ghost as the home for the main Fulcrum site here before deciding between it, WordPress, or something else as the permanent choice.

So Ghost, pick up your fucking ActivityPub integration game, if you want a long-term client. In particular, the reader and 3rd party Fediverse client compatibility suck. The same is not true for your competition.

Bear

Cats and Birds and Stuff explains:

Why I Left WordPress for BearBlog

Simple is better, as long as Herman never shuts down Bear.

Leaflet

Scraps shares:

On Atmospheric Stacks… Or, how we can supplant Substack and take back the stack, together as an ecosystem!

Write.as / WriteFreely

Write.as asks:

Been a while since you logged into Write.as?

If you have a website, please use it. Share your unique insights frequently no matter how small or insignificant you think they are. They are literally revolutionary at this point.

Back to top 👆🏼

Tools

Organic Maps announces:

Bugfixes and improvements for public transport, routing, search, and bookmarks in the July 2026 update

I ran across this useful resource this week:

Chapril by April

And I added it to our tools page.

Chat / Team Chat

It’s Going Down has:

The P.E.T. Guide

P.E.T. apps are self-contained applications that permit Peer-to-peer and Encrypted messaging over Tor.

Browsers

Servo has this report:

June in Servo: real world compat, media queries, SharedWorker, and more!

And 9to5Linux has a:

First Look at Firefox’s Brand-New Design in Firefox Nightly

Remember to use Firefox forks like Waterfox, Librewolf, or Zen.

Writing

LibreOffice looks at:

The characteristics of a truly open document standard format

9to5Linux reports:

Calibre 9.13 E-Book Manager Improves PDF Output, Content Server, and More

Creative

And:

Shotcut 26.7 Video Editor Adds Graphics Adapter for Linux, Shake Video Filter

Linux / Open Android

And:

NVIDIA Joins Dell and HP in Supporting the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS)

PostmarketOS announces:

Non-adaptive apps hidden in Phosh by default

Tuta shares:

DeGoogled phones, made in Europe: Fairphone, Volla, SHIFTphone, Punkt – a full review

You should own one.

Speaking of, e/OS announces:

Please welcome /e/OS 4.1.1

On the last day of July, Purism shared its:

PureOS Development Report: June 2026

Ruben de Smet explores:

My Sailfish OS Journey: I have my Jolla Phone, what now?

F-Droid has:

This Week in F-Droid

Larvit Blog shares:

Three Test Jails on a 512 MB Free-Tier VPS

This week's featured OMN tool

Chapril Toolbox

The site offers free and accessible online services that use alternatives to GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft) products.

Chavril by April

Back to top 👆🏼

Programming

W3C shares:

Further Aligning W3C's Program of Technical Work with Human Rights

Nice thoughts, but actions are more important.

LibreOffice reports:

CISA Publishes Open Source Security Guidance: Verifiability Is the Difference

Git

Damien Mathieu says:

Thank you, Codeberg

Moi, aussi.

Lalit Maganti opines:

GitHub has alternatives, but no replacement

Since it's shit, I don't know why you would want to replace it. If you need a enterprise solution, use Gitlab. If you are ethical, use Codeberg. And it you need social dopamine hits with your git, use Tangled.

HTML

Master.dev explores:

Something Nobody Told You About The Image Element (It Can Overflow!)

Unplanned Obsolescence explains:

The Difference Between a Button and a Link

You rarely need the first, but many people misuse them. Including the template we're using on this site. :(

HTMX

Serge Zaitsev says:

Let's make the worst htmx ever! ;)

Fafael demonstrates:

Building Progressively Enhanced Forms Using htmx

CSS

Master.dev looks at:

5 CSS Properties You Should Know for Better Text Designs

Some useful CSS.

Web Components

JavaScript

Piccallili explores:

Creating Promises

This bedeviled me in full-stack bootcamp. ;(

Akido reports:

Keyv and friends compromised in active Shai-Hulud supply chain attack

JavaScript. Gotta love it. Not!

AI

The Guardian reports:

Chasing new skills, going back to basics and pushing for collective action: how software engineers are adapting to AI

If you are a wage slave (even a well paid one), this is what you have to deal with.

Pivot to AI reports:

Copilot prompt injection goes viral in your documents

Not a WebDev language, but Inside Rust Blog reports:

rust-lang/rust is adopting an LLM policy

Every opensource project should as well.

Other

Open Project releases:

OpenProject 17.7: Resource management and better team organization

This week's featured programming tool

Pears

Unleash the Power of P2P. Empower Developers, Disrupt the Norm!

Pears

Back to top 👆🏼

ActivityPub

The Association for Progressive Communications has an interview:

DrFed on reducing complexity and enabling more people to shape the Fediverse

A fantastic interview with someone doing the best simplification work for disastrously complicated ActivityPub development.

Journey of the Wolf and Raven announces:

Activity-Relay Server v2.5.0 RC1 is now live

SocialHome announces:

Socialhome backend v0.24.0 released

ActivityPub.space shares some info:

ActivityPub Trust & Safety Taskforce Meeting 2026-08-05

Open Risk has a great thread:

Has there been a distinct phase of the Web after the original TBL protocols and implementations (=Web 1.0)?

Related to the 4Rs (reuse).

This week's featured ActivityPub featured tool

Hacker's Pub

East Asian-oriented Hackers' Pub is an ActivityPub-enabled social network for software engineers to share their knowledge and experience with each other.

Hacker's Pub

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

Here's a more in-depth explanation of the above from Federated Mind:

Account portability on the Fediverse vs. the ATmosphere

Sturmsucht's Blog & Community shares:

A new social me

I fancy myself a photographer so this tracks for me too.

Hamish Campbell says:

The Fediverse is fun and growing, but it seems to kinda be on autopilot at the moment

Bonfire

I have a sad announcement coming about our Manade project next week.

Back to top 👆🏼

More

Thinking with Portals explores:

Increasing lot sizes of our digital homes

This is some good thinking. ;)

ATProto

Permadeath advocates for:

Adversarial internecting

We're in with this subversion tactic, though reading the post made my brain hurt a little. ;)

Scott's Thoughts include one:

On an Atmosphere OS

Thinking with Portals examines:

Decentralised Identity 🤝 Mesh Networking

Owais reports:

Bobbin is Tangled's read-only AppView

Debbie's Blatherings explains:

Why good non-techie user documentation is vital for a wider embrace of the ATmosphere

Yep. And on the Fediverse and everywhere else.

Atmosphere Community shares a presentation:

AtmosphereConf Interactive Transcripts using Hyperaudio by Mark Boas

Atmosphere

The Verge has a long, long interview:

Bluesky’s new CEO wants a big tent, not a bubble

BTW, they clickbait the headline and framing. And the boss man isn't a clear communicator. And he seems more naive than villainous. Which is better than I expected.

Interlinked says:

Let's Talk Money

This is a more interesting article about the future of the Atmosphere.

What's Happening on my Feed? shares:

Community (Moderation) in Practice

Ewan Croft reports:

W Social Isn't New. It Isn't Truly European. It Isn't Even Theirs.

Fuck W Social and the bamboozled fucks on it. It’s understandable for a company to be a box of cunts, and the general public to be clueless marks, but I hate tech-gullible, easily-bought politicians. They do almost as much harm as the techno fascists.

RSS

Sindre shares:

Best practices for RSS

It's FOSS reviews:

Escape the Algorithm: 10 RSS Feed Readers You Can Self Host in Your Homelab

Stefan Van Buren advises:

PSA: Include full article content in feeds

Oui.

XMPP

XMPP shares:

The XMPP Newsletter July 2026

Consider attending their online summit.

Matrix

Matrix announces:

Matrix Community Workation Krems 2026

Democracy Tech

Decidim asks:

Would you like to propose a session at the next edition of Decidim Fest 2026?

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

View original

#ATProto #ActivityPub #Bear #CSS #Codeberg #Eurosky #F-droid #Fediverse #Forgejo #GitHub #HTML #JavaScript #Leaflet #LibreOffice #Linux #Matrix #Nextcloud #OMN #RSS #Signal #StandardSite #Tangled #WriteAs #XMPP

Powered by Be