#asknostr
Any users out there?đ€
Feedback?
Opinions?
A Start9 package?
Discussion
Theyâre kind of a mixed bag in my experience.
Iâm self-hosting an LND node and AlbyHub provides a nice LnUrl endpoint for it, allowing me to receive inbound lightning transmissions via a custom address (e.g. anon@anon.dev)
If youâre planning to self-host, setup of AlbyHub is very clunky and error-prone, at least with their Windows version. Click the âNotes and Repliesâ section of my profile and scroll almost to the bottom and you can read a long reply of mine that details some of the problems youâll face. Some are minor, but others can be show-stoppers if youâre unaware of them.
They use way too many CAPTCHAs, even for simple things like changing common settings. That alone caused me to avoid playing around with the product beyond what was absolutely necessary for my use case.
Also, see my post from 8/13 regarding the issue of Alby monitoring and logging every single transaction going through my node, even those that donât require the use of Alby, and sending me an email about those transactions. Right now, on Albyâs email server, sits a record of every Lightning transaction Iâve ever made. Since Iâm just testing and playing around, I donât care. But for production use it would be a deal-killer.
If you read Albyâs reply to me, they say thereâs a way to limit what Alby can see on your node. They even provided a screenshot. That screen is nowhere to be found, unless itâs hiding behind one of their endless CAPTCHA puzzles and I just missed it.
To be clear, the Alby team seems to be a good bunch of guys and I donât think theyâre trying to pull a fast one on anyone. I think they genuinely care about the Lightning ecosystem and want to participate in growing it. But there are trade offs with privacy and usability to consider, so itâs up to you as the user to decide what youâre comfortable with.
THANK you so much, nostr:nprofile1qqst2sjv3m9htwegyeuu6r2ukzdg0y2nuct48wlf9xn6vn9yts7d2dqpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhszrnhwden5te0dehhxtnvdakz7ucgx0q, đfor this very helpful and revealing answer.đđ»đđ
awesome, I really appreciate your feedback here and before and it has great points on where we can improve.
a few comments:
If you run LND already you should probably not use the windows app. Just run Alby Hub similar as your LND node. It's a simple executable. If possible run the server version, it will always be easier and more reliable as the Desktop app. That said I hope we can improve the Windows installation and update process soon.
Which captchas do you refer to? We only have those during signup and login and it should be just a checkbox for most users. Sadly it's still the best option to protect accounts and prevent many malicious requests.
We have build features like email notifications, channel suggestions, etc. which should help running the node and improve the experience. Those features have been enabled by default just because we didn't get to making those optional. It has nothing todo with logging. Also since version 1.8.0 The Alby account is now optional. So if you don't want those features it's optional now.
Would be awesome if you can checkout v1.8. looking forward to hear from you if we're moving in the right direction.
It's a lot of work that we're putting in this and it's still a long way. we are still missing many things and we're grateful for every user who goes with us on this journey.
