GitHub: Can no longer search code without being logged in
GitHub: Can no longer search code without being logged in
Select Topic Area Product Feedback Body This is revolting and an anathema to the open source movement. A movement, I might add, Microsoft is abusing here. We're told that this is for security... Bu...
Edit:
Since theres been some confusion with dates
In 2016 github made site side searching login only and hid the search bar if you werent logged in. This didnt include searching within a repository so that could still be done, just not all repositories
This year was the change being referred to in this link which made repository level searching require logging in
Blog post: https://github.blog/changelog/2023-06-07-code-search-now-requires-login/
Hey Guys, Microsoft is cool now, they really care for Open Source now, they changed.
How do people always forget, how often they get fucked by that company in the last 20 years, that they think anything changed? They still abuse their monopoly, they still buy up the work of others and they still will then dilute it down for their bottom line and restrict it to force you to use a login to harvest data on your profile (see also Windows).
Everyone who said it's cool that MS bought Github, because they are now Pro-Open-Source: Can we please have a round table every 2 years and talk. Because I think you guys are victims of the Stockholm syndrome and do not even notice.
Yeah, fuck Microsoft. They haven't changed at all.
For example I remember when they held monopoly in a browser market and purposely broke their sites for other browsers.
Now the IE is gone, they have Chrome based Edge and are doing it again, if for example you try to use their office and make Teams call in Firefox it will refuse saying you should use Edge or Chrome. I'm guessing they are now trying again to claim they support another browser in case of antitrust, but Edge and Chrome is essentially the same thing. They just want to kill Firefox.
Yeah, fuck Microsoft. They haven’t changed at all.
GitHub changed that a few months before acquisitions talks even started lol
I can fix her!!! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Apparently, this change was in 2016 - before MS bought them. However, I agree with your point. But the proof of that isn't in restricting search to logged in users. It's in how they ripped off FOSS code (esp GPL code) for training copilot. They did something that fundamentally damaged the roots of FOSS activity.
restrict it to force you to use a login to harvest data on your profile (see also Windows).
FYI, there is no forcing here. Heavy suggestions, but no forcing. I've never used a MS or Hotmail account to log into Windows 10 or 11.
If some has to know to unplug the internet, try to sign up, and force an error to bypass sign up...
It is forcing.
Fantastic way to start a shitstorm. You people don't even use search function logged out, because if you did, you would know they changed it in 2016. Microsoft has nothing to do with it.
searching across all of github was made to be logged in then
repository level searching though is relatively recent. Heres the blog post about the change dated in June this year https://github.blog/changelog/2023-06-07-code-search-now-requires-login/
This comment by an employee in the thread also calls out it was in 2023 and links to the blog post
Heres the blog post about the change dated in June this year
Half year too late for that outrage anyway :)
I have been able to search logged out within a repository, up to this year. I think what you are referring to is search across all repositories. That was indeed disables a while ago. But things did change this year, unfortunately. So yes there is a legitimate and new issue... Once more.
Oh is that why I can't seem to figure out where the damn search function is anymore? That's legit been driving me nuts for a few years.
This is helpful. Thanks. Didnt even realize it. No need to use something to point out how its not a good look. It's still good to bring more awareness around how sites like Github are becoming a more of walled gardens. I agree with everything else you said though.
It's not new, but it's possible that this is the first ticket created to discuss it. I don't search github using their shitty search anymore anyway: Long live https://sourcegraph.com/
What are you saying? We're not supposed to form ignorant mobs with pitchforks?
The biggest news to me is that GitHub allows users to search code. Every single time I tried to search something in GitHub, search results were next to completely useless, and always a sure-fire waste of time and effort.
There's hope, I guess.
lol? That must have been a half ass attempt on your part because GitHub search is fantastic.
I don't find the search too bad but what does make it difficult is digging through a million forks of a library. Sometimes I want to find how other people used an obscure library method and I end up having to wade through endless forks with the same repeated bit of code.
This is more a complaint of people using forking as a like button but I do wish there was an option to exclude them from search.
GitHub search is almost as bad as Atlassian search
Honestly, I can't wait for Forgejo to implement federation. Gitlab might do so too after Forgejo shows that it's possible and gets a major following. They already are letting one external dude implement it after having slept on it for a good decade.
Yeah. Right now GitHub is the only choice for my work to be seen; but someone is going to fix that by adopting activity Pub.
I'll run my own instance once that's an option.
Someone please correct me if it's already in play and I've just missed it.
It's still not here. If you're a Go or Ruby dev with some time, you could help out Forgejo or Gitlab.
I see they've finally started the Extinguish phase.
Moved to Codeberg. They won't ice me out like Microsoft over there
do you log in to codeberg?
Not to view code
And this is why my Org rolled our own Gitea server.
FWIW Sourcegraph chrome extension adds a neat “open in Sourcegraph” to github pages and SG is just superior. Why would you use Github's mediocre search either way ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
2023, the year of Big Tech companies restricting their users in every single possible way. But why is 2023 not the year of users finally waking up and switching away from this proprietary garbage?
The last part is happening. A lot of people switched to gogs/gitea/forgejo instances like codeberg when GH pulled a copilot on them. Lemmy went from being an obscure platform to a good one with lots of new users, better codebase and loads of clients when Reddit screwed its users. Mastodon was already healthy, but ballooned in size when twitter was trashed by Musk. YouTube is the only platform standing without a viable alternative, but people are trying after their adblock shenanigans.
Are the big proprietary platforms dead yet? No. Did they lose the audience - only a little bit. But it has made the alternative open platforms healthy and stronger. We are no longer in a condition where big platforms can just screw their users knowing that nothing will happen to them. Each transgression will cause more and more people to migrate. That's a good thing.
Because for them, it's exhausting. If you're a regular person who thinks of a computer as an appliance and you've learned how to use it by memorizing steps (click here, click that, that makes The Excel open) instead of understanding the system as a whole, you're starting from so far behind the curve it would be like asking them to take a few semesters of night classes at a community college just to understand how this shit even works, let alone what to do about it. Fuck, I get tired of it, and I'm at least literate in the domain.
Imagine trying to teach any exhausted mom or pop what a "cookie" even is at the end of a workday. Or to explain to someone why the social site they use to share pictures of their kids is evil. Or how that same social site puts an invisible dot on your computer that spies on you. Or why it's really not in their best interest to have ads show them stuff they genuinely like. You'll sound crazy! Absolutely paranoid. Facebook hasn't come to my house with guns! Jesus! Now let me get back to the "news" here about how the other political party drinks blood from children.
Even if you got them to wake up, so to speak, what are they going to do? Are the same kind of people that loved the cute purple gorilla Bonzi Buddy and thought it was normal to have 17 toolbars in Internet Explorer -- are they really going to be just fine moving to Ubuntu? They'll throw the whole machine in the trash the first time they need to call their ISP and get told "we don't officially support Linux". They'll return it to the store as broken when their new printer doesn't automatically work. (What the fuck is CUPS?)
Throwing it all in the trash Ron Swanson-style is the other option -- maybe a better one -- except it isn't an option at all. Because the web is so integral to doing any kind of business or banking now that you can't just go full Walden Pond and function in society.
Microsoft sucks for this, outlook, "open source vscode", and many other reasons.
That said my current workaround is to use sourcegraph.
Reject shithub, return to open source
It's been this way for years. Really?
Permanently Deleted
Fuck's sake, people. Gitlab already didn't allow search unless you were logged in.
This ain't enshittification.This ain't enshittification.
Sure it is. The fact it happened in 2016 doesn't make it less shitty.
I don't know that "requiring a free account" is enshitification.
Enshitification is the pursuit of profits at the expense of users and core experience.Sure, it's annoying. Especially if I'm checking something on a random computer that I don't want to log into GitHub with.
But worst case, I can search on my phone then navigate to the file.