Official Announcement: https://lemmy.fmhy.ml/post/263377 Github Release Page: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/releases/tag/0.18.0
This is a massive upgrade, and a lot of the minor annoyances that users were finding about Lemmy has been fixed. You can check the above links for all the changes implemented but some of the major ones are:
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Websockets replaced by HTTP: What this means for you is that instances will feel snappier due to less load, and the annoying sudden flood of new posts when browing hot is also gone. In general hot/active sorting has been reworked and feel much better to browse.
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Links that would take you off-instance should now get automatically converted to ones that don’t. And just writing the name should be enough to turn it into a link. So no more manually searching for the linked communities you find in the comments.
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Support for 2-Factor Authentification.
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Custom emojis for Instances.
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Support for PWA.
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A Share Button.
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Improvements to overall look and feel of Lemmy.
Not to mention many under the hood changes like database optimizations and bug fixes. This is a very big version upgrade that’s come at just the right time.
However, some Instance admins encountered errors when trying to upgrade. And captchas, which we rely on to prevent bots from flooding in, will come back only in version 0.18.1.
So our options are to either upgrade now, maybe have some downtime and to turn on registration applications, or wait until v0.18.1 is released before upgrading (which shouldn’t take more than a few days). We are leaning towards option 2 for now, but interested in hearing what others have to say.
I sat wait. Right now Lemmy and this instance are working and usable. IDK why they’d pull captcha given the number of spam bots but that’s worth waiting for IMHO especially if it’s only a few days.
I remember reading through a discussion in which the dev popped in to explain their reasoning, maybe a Github issue? but yeah, if it will only be a few days work to implement a different capcha, probably better to wait.
I don’t get why not wait a few days for the release then? If the problem is that easy to fix, is there some other issue that needs to be released ASAP?
That’s just what they decided to go with. I think it was a decent decision given the usability and stability problems that were made apparent when people started coming in droves during the blackouts. Now instance operators have a choice; upgrade and lose captcha temporarily (those with email verification and applications less affected here), or wait for 0.18.1 when it’s slated to be implemented.