After about half a year since the previous main release, the launch of the new version and branch of the platform to build decentralized social networks Hubzilla 7.0.
For those who do not know about the project, they should know that it provides a communication server that integrates with web publishing systems, equipped with a transparent identification system and access controls in decentralized Fediverse networks. The project code is written in PHP and Javascript and is distributed under the MIT license.
hubzilla supports a unified authentication system to work as a social network, forums, discussion groups, Wiki, article publishing systems and websites. I also implemented a data warehouse with WebDAV support and we work with events with CalDAV support.
The federated interaction is based on the patented Zot protocol, which implements the WebMTA concept to transmit content via WWW in decentralized networks and provides a number of unique functions, in particular, transparent end-to-end authentication "Nomad Identity" within the Zot network, as well as a cloning function for ensure completely identical points of login and user data sets on multiple network nodes.
Hubzilla 7.0 Main New Features
Among the main innovations, it is worth highlighting a completely redesigned access rights system, which is one of the key features of Hubzilla. The refactoring made it possible to simplify the workflow while providing greater flexibility with a more convenient organization of the interaction.
And it is that with this change channel roles have been simplified, there is now a choice of 4 possible options: “public”, “private”, “community forum” and “custom”. By default, the channel is created as "private".
Individual permissions for contacts have been removed gradually in favor of roles, which are now a requirement when adding each contact.
The contact roles have a default preset value, which is determined by the role of the channel. Custom contact roles can be created as desired. Any contact role can be set as default for new connections in the Contact Roles app.
La privacy settings moved to a separate settings module: Visibility settings for Online Status and Guide Entries and Offers Pages have been moved to Profile.
Besides it advanced settings are available in privacy settings if the custom channel role is selected. They received an initial warning and some entries that could be misunderstood were given hints.
Moreover, the privacy groups can be managed from the “Privacy Groups” app, if installed. The settings for the default privacy group for new content and the default privacy group for new contacts have also been moved there.
Guest access has been redesigned to allow new invitees to be added to privacy groups. Quick access links to private resources have been added to the dropdown list for convenience.
Of the other changes that stand out:
- Improved user interface to change profile picture.
- Improved display of surveys.
- Fixed bug with polls for channels – forums.
- Improved performance when deleting a contact.
- Removed deprecated private messaging extension. Instead, even for the exchange with Diaspora, the standard mechanism of direct messages is used.
- Support and improvements for the Socialauth extension.
- Various bug fixes.
- Most of the work was done by lead developer Mario Vavti with the support of NGI Zero open source funding.
Finally, if you are interested in being able to know more about it, you can consult the details in the following link
Download Hubzilla
For those of you interested in getting the new version of Hubzilla, they can do it from the following link.
Or from the terminal with the following command:
wget https://framagit.org/hubzilla/core/-/archive/master/core-master.zip
As for the Hubzilla installation is really easy, since if you have installed WordPress, Drupal, Jumla, etc. Hubzilla installation will be very easy. It is important to mention that Hubzilla is designed to be installed on servers, even if for home kits, te you can support LAMP to facilitate the installation process.