I was able to read the article with some ad blockers and without a subscription, but editing to add an archive link, shared below: https://archive.is/NBivg
This seems like a really cool device from a company called Werewolf. As the article details, they make a little $8 programmable USB-C power adapter, called the VFLEX, that you can get barrel plug adapters for to power older devices that use barrel plugs.
The article discusses some caveats, such as not every USB-C power supply supporting every voltage a device may need. But you can plug the VFLEX into your power adapters (and battery banks) and create a local database of available voltages. Then when you want to power a specific device the app will guide you through which power adapters are compatible with it.
I have no affiliation with the company, but after reading about the VFLEX it seems like a neat option to power some older devices I have.
Guys, why am I seeing ads on Lemmy?
This is pretty spammy. Those types of adapters have been around forever. You can get them from adafruit and probably aliexpress and so on. https://www.adafruit.com/product/6032
Granted, I’ve never looked or even considered that something like this might exist, but I had no idea they existed until today. It looks like the one you linked is a fixed 12V, and others have linked other options that can be programmed for different voltages.
The one I linked is 12v but you can select other voltages with the pulldown. I mean you can order 6v, 9v, 12v etc. versions, not that they are programmable. There are programmable ones elsewhere, and also some that handle higher current.
Sounded interesting until I hit their “web app”
No Firefox (and derivatives) support can and should be a fucking dealbreaker.
Wait are they using MIDI for updating the firmware on their dongle? Or what? Because that’s a pretty nasty vulnerability.
This API is actually a bit horrifying from a security perspective. In addition to allowing you to use MIDI keyboards as input devices on websites, it also allows websites to send binary firmware updates to MIDI devices. The reason is that it’s common to use custom firmware to backup/restore settings and enable neat effects and functionality on MIDI devices.
Mozilla’s engineers have reasonably pointed out that an attacker utilizing Web MIDI could use MIDI devices as a stepping stone to launch an attack against the user’s PC outside of the web sandbox. One such attack might be by reprogramming the device to appear as a standard USB computer keyboard and “typing” commands to the host.
I also heard it could be used for fingerprinting.
Thanks for the info. I didn’t really understand the add-on, just that it was trying to add it in an unsafe manner. I figured someone with more knowledge would show up with more info. Cheers.
No, firefox doesn’t implement the webusb standard which they probably want.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebUSB_API
The problem here is not browser support, but them not shipping a native application or library (which I would want to be open source).
WebMIDI requirement? Hard pass.
That browser looks interesting, what’s the name?
Looks like Firefox with a theme
I just buy fixed-voltage USB-C to barrel jack adapters for $2-4 on AliExpress. No programming and they’re cheaper and smaller, but you can’t repurpose them to use different voltages.
Is qc a concern?
You can with some but you have to change a resistor.
A programmable PD barrel adapter isn’t exactly new.
Here’s one with all the barrel adapters included and doesn’t need an app.
And at a fraction of the prove.
ooo, awesome.
Now I just have to work on an excuse to get one of these :)
I was curious how you were supposed to configure the thing’s output… and of course it has to be a mobile app.
I’d prefer physical buttons I can check and change whenever like an actual old school power adapter.
Looks like the app has a bit more functionality. I can see it being useful if you have many different devices with a variety of chargers and voltages. Would be a pain to manage all those cables and wall plugs.
You can save profiles for each gadget and charger to the Werewolf app — and use the VFLEX dongle itself to test your power sources. Press the scan button, plug the dongle into your charger, plug it back into your phone, and the app will store your charger’s capabilities.
When it’s time to plug in my 19-volt monitor, I don’t need to pick “19 volts” or remember which of my chargers can deliver — I just tap the picture of my monitor, and the app tells me which of my saved chargers are compatible. Tap that charger, hit “Update” to program the dongle, then plug everything in correctly.
They should have used a virtual serial port then. That way you could just type commands using your favorite serial terminal.
I’m pretty sure most people would actually scream if they ever encountered a command line interface, but yeah there’s definitely better technologies to choose from than WebMIDI of all things…
There’s no reason they couldn’t have an app that talks to that serial port as well.
I know nothing about it, but it really depends on how they implement this.
There might or might not be a well-documented API that would make it easy to code your own app or just send commands to it.
Them providing a mobile app is not a bad thing per se. And maybe a few physical buttons wouldn’t be enough. And physical buttons are expensive (to get right). It sucks, but there it is.
They push updates over WebMIDI, so I wouldn’t hold my breath on a secure API.
Wouldn’t this with a barrel adaptor, be pretty much the same thing (except not require opening myself up to the many WebMIDI vulns)?
Edit. Here’s a picture so you don’t have to click.
But this is a buck-boost converter.
It doesn’t have PD protocol.
So you are limited to 5 V on the input side,
and probably max. 3 A of current.
Max. power will be like 15 W minus an efficiency loss.
Subscription required
Huh, I was able to view the article just fine without seeing anything about needing a subscription.
The article is subscription locked for me as well, strange…
Bypass Paywalls Clean:
https://gitflic.ru/project/magnolia1234/bpc_uploads
The only reason it is hosted in Russia is because it was kicked off Firefox Add-ons, then Gitlab, then Github due to DMCA takedown notices.
here you go: https://archive.is/NBivg
Where does it say that? I checked the linked article and the product site and can’t see any mention of a subscription.
Only for people who don’t use proper web browsers with a proper ad blocker.
TAF‽ For a dongle‽
ÞAF*
Reading mode worked for me on Firefox Mobile.
Non blocked link: https://archive.is/NBivg
@crank0271@lemmy.world Please use archive.is to link paywalled/subscription content.
Please don’t use Russian propaganda DDOS botnets. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/wikipedia-bans-archive-today-after-site-executed-ddos-and-altered-web-captures/
Fuck archive.is/.today/…!
Can you suggest an alternative? While I deplore what they did I can kinda understand the archive maintainer being pissed at someone who tried to dox them.
Anyway this kind of things can happen when you use illegal services.
Can you suggest an alternative?
Use Firefox, install uBlock Origin and enable all filter lists as well as https://filterlists.com/lists/bypass-paywalls-clean-filter and install Cookie AutoDelete extension to clear number of visits to a website (for “you already read 3 free articles, subscribe now” things).
Doesn’t work everywhere but does work for The Verge and Telegraph.
Oof, that’s pretty bad… reminds me of when Tesseract dev put faulty DDoS code on their manifesto
As we previously reported, malicious code in Archive.today’s CAPTCHA page was used to direct a DDoS against the Gyrovague blog written by a man named Jani Patokallio. The Archive.today maintainer demanded that Patokallio take down a 2023 blog post that discussed the archive site founder’s possible identity. Patokallio wasn’t able to determine who runs Archive.today but mentioned apparent aliases such as “Denis Petrov” and “Masha Rabinovich,” and described evidence that the site is operated by someone from Russia.
In emails sent to Patokallio after the DDoS began, “Nora” from Archive.today threatened to create a public association between Patokallio’s name and AI porn and to create a gay dating app with Patokallio’s name. These threats were discussed by Wikipedia editors in their deliberations over whether to blacklist Archive.today, and then editors noticed that Patokallio’s name had been inserted into some Archive.today captures of webpages
“Honestly, I’m kind of in shock,” one editor wrote. “Just to make sure I’m understanding the implications of this: we have good reason to believe that the archive.today operator has tampered with the content of their archives, in a manner that suggests they were trying to further their position against the person they are in dispute with??? If this is true it essentially forces our hand, archive.today would have to go. The argument for allowing it has been verifiability, but that of course rests upon the fact the archives are accurate."
More than 695,000 links to Archive.today are distributed across 400,000 or so Wikipedia pages. The archive site is commonly used to bypass news paywalls, and the FBI has sought information on the site operator’s identity with a subpoena to domain registrar Tucows.
