Tapatalk Removed

[joshuadenmark]

Until Tapatalk is claimed 100% secure it's not longer a service provided at Denial forum.

Please let me know if there is any glitches caused by the un-installation of the plugin, thanks.

[joshuadenmark]

When we're at it, there is a version upgrade up front. I've been pushing this in front of me, as I find these updates nerve wrecking, it is so easy to trash it all

Now finding out the security risk of the Tapatalk plugin and to be unable to remove the Tapatalk files without crashing the forum the update is now soon to come.

Hopefully I will be done the following weekend, nervous wrecked...

[Vic 2000]

Whishing you good luck Peter.

I read about more admins in another forum complaining about Tapatalk and security issues.
https://theadminzone.com/threads/anyone ... um.132825/

[highinfidelity]

Wise move.

Thanks heavens I have refrained from installing it on my phpBB, although I ignored everything about the security issues.

What is really crazy is that it operates by fully bypassing the forum .cgi-s and directly operating with their own (or so it seems, I don't have the knowledge to assess it). This basically means that the forum is no longer yours: it's theirs and potentially they can do whatever they want whenever they want with it. Sounds like one of those world-terror crazy plans deployed by The Joker: with the push of a button all forums in the world will belong to them. Well allright I'm overdoing it but it's still quite scary if you ask me.

[joshuadenmark]

Lucky You @highinfidelity

When installing it's "just" uploading 2 folders - install from extension menu - easy peasy

But removing it "¤#%"¤¤## (grah, argggh, f...)

Hopefully the forum update will flush the Tapatalk install - fingers crossed

[highinfidelity]

Still thinking about this Tapatalk thing. Had you thought that what saved me is my wisdom, you're way off. It was simply my laziness and lack of knowledge. Many years ago I began with SnitzForums2000, a cute little .asp-based software on which basically everything was optional: ranks management, even avatars and other basic stuff like that. These were available as add-on modules, to be hard-coded into the appropriate .asp files. They were quite easy to edit and install, but turned every software update into a nightmare later. Line numbering was offset, the original statements and so on were modified and hard to be searched for, etc. Of course you didn't remember what you did nor you could tell the original statements by the modified or added ones, so it was a real mess and a terrible waste of time.

By the way I recall the forum being hacked ("cracked", more properly) once. To take control of it, the "crackers" (not the crunchy bread thing, the IT criminals...) used a breech in the apparently humble and almost useless stars & ranking module (!!!). With a long and involuted procedure they could somehow apply to their own account an admin rank, and with that later take control over the database. So, really: every little thing can be potentially used as a hacking breech, go figure a thing as big as Tapatalk.

Later we moved to phpBB, basically because developers of Snitz were very stubborn in adding new features that all users considered standard at that point. As phpBB basically comes with everything you need - unless you're a gadget boy - considered my previous experience I steer off by any third-party add on and stuff that requires hard-coding or that in any case will change the code significantly. That's basically why I never install things like Tapatalk, for how useful they might seem. We had to change the stylesheet with a custom one and that worried me enough already.

In any case, may I be damned if this is not one of the cases in which an admin would like to be alerted by the phpBB team. I subscribed to their newsletter but all I received so far are alerts about lesser software updates (which is OK) but absolutely no mention about any bug resolved or any potential threat fixed (and this is NOT OK, as I find very hard to believe that phpBB never had bugs or breeches). And of course no alert on NOT installing Tapatalk until the code had been appropriately checked and sanitized, which is indeed something I would have liked to be alerted about.

[Vic 2000]

It's almost like installing a virus, their code take over the forum and then they can bypass whatever they want.

It's like when you install a new app for your android mobile. Some apps want to have access to almost anything on your mobile. And you can't complain about it either, when you press the OK button, your mobile is in their hands.

Windows 10 takes it to the extreme, install it and Microsoft will own your computer and watch everything you do. You can't even turn off automatic updates.

[rhurst]

Follow the money trail: we're in that change cycle again driven by information security. Steel yourself in these draconian times.

[Jeff-20]

I've been away for so long that I just got around to removing the app from my phone. Mobile browsers are so much better lately. These Tapatalk-like services will likely disappear.

[beamrider]

Any chance of looking at this again. A few other forums I'm on have now reintroduced it.

[joshuadenmark]

The tapatalk plugin fiddles with the core of the forum, I won't take the chance installing this again. But this is not for me to decide, because it's Jeff who's the owner of the forum.

[ral-clan]

I really did not like the way TapaTalk pestered me to install it on my tablet every time I visited a forum and am not eager to see it installed on Denial again.

[Jeff-20]

I'd prefer not to have it. It seems to me that mobile devices have greatly improved in displaying phpbb sites. I have no trouble on an iphone. Is anyone having troubles with the site as it is now?

[Kakemoms]

No problems on OSX, iPhone/iPad, Waterfox, Firefox, Opera, Konqueror..