At work I was asked by a different team how we can deal with bots, because someone in my team remembered that I knew how to do it.
I reluctantly suggested Anubis because I got shit for it last time, This is the URL https://anubis.techaro.lol/
This is the 2nd and last time I will ever recommend Anubis anywhere at work to deal with bots because of how unprofessional, un-serious and weird others perceive it.
The mascot being a ~10 year old “cutsie” anime cat girl is weird in a work setting.
I will never put myself in a situation again where I have to explain that it’s not weird to anyone again, same for that URL.
What is a professional looking open-source alternative to Anubis?
Edit: No I can’t just send my colleges here https://anubis.techaro.lol/docs/admin/botstopper The issue is they find the Mascot and domain weird, they will still run into both.
My Goal: Recommend a Open-Source bot protection tool
The Issue: When I send my coworkers to https://anubis.techaro.lol/docs/admin/botstopper they find the mascot and URL weird.
Result: They don’t see Anubis as a serious tool and turn away from it
What is a professional looking open-source alternative to Anubis?
I get it that you want to be a worker with a good idea, but after that reaction, I would not give a fuck anymore about what this company needs.
I worked at ‘company’ once that felt bad because it used Blender, not an expensive 3D software, so they bought 3DsMax license only for it to lie down and being unused, but the boss ego was a bit less scratched by using Free stuff. Like those people are fucked up.
It’s like homophobia, but whimsyfunphobia
they see a mascot that dont like and then dont use that software because that? how unprofessional
Professionalism = prioritizing getting the job done.
These people are incredibly unprofessional.
what?
What part is confusing?
Are you being sarcarstic? because your first answer has more upvotes than my comment, and the answer seems to concur with my comment (and i quote):
Professionalism = prioritizing getting the job done. These people are incredibly unprofessional.
that is what i dont understand, you are saying the same thing as me so why response in first place and why are you getting more upvotes? Sorry if i sound very upset but i really dont understand
They commented for emphasis, they’re agreeing with you. They worded it better so they get more upvotes.
This isn’t reddit, upvotes don’t matter, don’t worry about it
Not sarcastic, not sardonic. Just emphasis I think.
As for the votes, I don’t know what to tell you. But I’m a bit lost, now, too.
I install gimp on my work PC. Anubis isn’t weird enough.
The Issue: When I send my coworkers to https://anubis.techaro.lol/docs/admin/botstopper they find the mascot and URL weird.
You’ve decided without listening to the responses
Botstopper doesn’t have the .lol domain, and doesn’t use the anime cat girl splash
It’s not even expensive
You don’t have to tell your peers it is just a rebadged version of the same website, just say “look I’ve found another one that does the same thing but without the domain and splashscreen probs you complained about”
OP, anubis is not a catgirl. She is a jackalgirl.
The type of folks who avoid Anubis because of the mascot don’t deserve good bot protection anyway. Its like reverse gate keeping, the corpo dorks filter themselves out.
Let’s expand this thought: we should put anime girls everywhere in order to filter corpo dorks. Making something look “silly” is actually a great ideia to shit on those “serious companies”.
Say what you will about having an anime girl wrap on your car, but everyone sees you and gives you plenty of space on the road.
I might mock the method, but I can’t argue with the results.
You seem to have rediscovered why some open source projects use names like GIMP. 🤣
came here to say just that
If you want serious and professional: Pay for it!
If you want it free, you get the anime girl.
This is an exclusive choice.
Isn’t it MIT? Can’t you just… Change the image?
Yep, or you can pay for the commercial version that has that feature built in. It’s up to you if you want to do the right thing or not.
Yeah but you need to sell that solution to the team before you’ve swapped the image, and that’s not their absolute favourite thing. It only meets 99% of their criteria.
This is brilliant.
the insane smugness and inability to comprehend that money isnt everything for the creator is astounding “Waaahhh Anubis isn’t gonna get my money cus they chose to look UNPROFESSIONAL” this is why everyone hates corpo guys
edit: I forgot to add the comments elsewhere downright accusing the creator of being a pedo for having an anime furry mascot yeah you guys arent subtle at all
MBAs love getting ripped off.
I’ve been explicitly told not to use any open source for a project. I don’t even know what language I’d write it in. We ended up not even quoting for it in the end.
If they pay for something they can hold someone accountable. Not a good excuse, but i don’t know any other reason.
This is it.
It’s about risk management. If you don’t have a vendor to provide measured performance criteria, you have no idea how it will perform.
Businesses are data-centric. Without that data, a product effectively doesn’t exist.
oh they do want all the shit anubis and other foss projects offers which is why they keep trying to browbeat and bully them whenever they arent soulless slop, see the comment thread elsewhere in this post where a bunch of fucks keep jerking off to their idea of replacing the catgirl with a grey square or something so that muh MaRkEt can get over itself and
take overproperly compensate the projectThey want to criticize the mascot and, what, replace it with some kinda glyphic anus logo like all the “professional” companies with stupid silicon valley-approved names? LOL what high-ground amirite? 😂
Irony of ironies: the new logo looks like a glyphic anus.
You can just do that yourself. Take the logo off.
thats the thing they are explicitly making a brandless soulless alternative you can change the branding for yet there’s still complaints and accusations for how the og software looks
which is what gives me the feeling these aren’t real concerns and is just a way to bully people working for free, if not some sort of astroturf conspiracy by businessmen who want anti-ai tools out of the way
Duckduckgo searching it, Botstopper, running Anubis in back and by the same author. I assume the website is theirs
There is a debranded version you can pay for
@Ek-Hou-Van-Braai Hi, tomska’s law is in play and I have been linked this thread. I am the Anubis dev. I am having my agent work on a soulless generic corporate website for BotStopper with one of the most painfully boring layouts imaginable, including a random WebGL effect on the homepage for no reason.
I couldn’t get a .com so I hope the corporate drones you work with will not balk at the sheer horror of a .net domain.
That’s fine and all, but this version should cost money. Not as much as cloudflare, so corpos go for it, but definitely more than enough to fund you.
If they want free, they can use the anime .lol cat girl. If that’s “too much” for them, then they can pay for the generic .net version.
That’s my opinion, at least.
This is actually a good idea
.net is perfectly fine, and C-Suites won’t frown at it.
Thanks for this, I really want to integrate your tool,
Plain and boring sounds great, I’d much rather see us using Open-Source tools than just turn to cloudflare or something, these changes would make it possible for me and others to push for this at work.
So your outfit is not going to notice that it says " Built by the creators of Anubis" on the page? They are not going to
googleresearch what this solution is and figure out it’s the same unprofessional project you recommended last time? And your guys work government projects?@Ek-Hou-Van-Braai I have made https://botstopper.net/. It is vibecoded as a stylistic choice. Everything in
docs/is copied from the BotStopper repo but with some information that would give attakcers hints deleted.Enjoy the utter lack of whimsy.
As an aside, please DM me somehow. I have feedback to give about your post.
An AI agent making a frontend for a bot stopping tool in order to appease corporate drones.
It’s robots all the way down!
This is truly horrible, amazing work.
Excellently corporate, I can already hear the MBAs salivating over how blandly cookie-cutter it is.
Amazing thank you, this is now something I can champion at work without risking reactions that I’ve gotten in the past.
@cadey @Ek-Hou-Van-Braai Normally I’d frown at AI usage/vibecoding, but this is delightful trolling of the OP and I absolutely love it.
How is this trolling me? it’s literally what I was looking for.
@Ek-Hou-Van-Braai Yes, your 3,000 comments on here have made it abundantly clear what you’re looking for.
So no, the dev isn’t trolling me.
2026
mistrusting a firewall because of a changeable anime catgirl when there’s technofascist executing and leading technofascism on IT all abroad
Your teammates are stupid (not to mention they are probably projecting their own fetishes, denialists and negationists are like that) and they deserve to be derided. Changing the logo of a program these days is, like, two lines in a script.
I also find the logo weird. They call it Anubis, but use an anime girl instead of a sexy, shirtless jackal man like Neferu.
tell them to grow up
Great career move, run around telling people to grow up.
Being assertive IS important in your career. Your colleagues are the unprofessional ones here. I would not tolerate someone sending me “lol” in a professional context and would quickly correct that behaviour.
A factual reply is all thats needed “you asked for a solution, this is the solution. Please do not be dismissive or rude. If you want an alternative please look for yourself, just expect the cost to be significantly higher. Otherwise I’m happy to discuss any concerns which are easily addressed such as branding”.
There is a huge difference between being rude and beibg assertive. They’re clearly being rude. You need to be assertive in response.
I think the “lol” is reference to the top level domain being .lol
Arguably even more stupid…
depends on what kind of relationship you have with your colleagues.
In this case, it’s a different team reaching out to me for advice. So zero, and they potentially would have used Anubis, but given the URL and mascot, I doubt it.
See here’s the thing - the mascot and URL are serving their purpose to deter the software author’s outsiders. They don’t want your business, it is a social signal being sent and the reception from your coworker? - did it’s job.
End result: Anubis loses a paying customer and big client that throws tens of millions each year at software projects.
It is WILD that someone from another team asks for help and replies with “lol” to dismiss your response. You need to correct that behaviour or they will treat you like shit going forward.
No, they are replying about the tld .lol, lol
They didn’t reply “lol” they replied “.lol?” because of the tld. I agree it sounds unprofessional though, who would choose that for their domain if its meant to be a legit/serious tool?
If it is a different team, why wouldn’t you just say that’s your recommendation? Your story isn’t making sense
