Pocket-sized computer tools are the definition of cool, recruiting many people over to the developer side of things, including your humble writer.

A project like Flipper One, which is intended to be a device that features the full mainline Linux kernel in a small package with a full range of connectivity, not to be used as a full-fledged computer (not all the time, at least) but rather a cyberdeck that can be used for development, experimentation and last but not the least, pentesting, is such a dream come true.

With its radical philosophy of complete openness, both in terms of hardware and software, and the ability to do whatever is possible with the hardware on board, it is a project that would have sent my 14 year-old self into a hyperventilating fit. So what exactly can it do? And how do you fit into the picture? That's exactly what we will tell you today.

Flipper One at a glance

Flipper One hasn't been released yet, but there are some ambitious features that have been planned for it. While Flipper Zero was more of an offline access tool, with emphasis on NFC, RFID infrared, UART and so on, Flipper One is intended to be a network connected Linux system. So obviously, we start with:

Connectivity

Flipper One self proclaims as a "Swiss Army knife for IP networks across all OSI layers", which include:

• 5G modem
• Wi-Fi 6E
• Two Gigabit Ethernet ports
• Upto 5 Gbps wired connectivity over USB-C Ethernet

All this results in Flipper One being usable as anything from a multi-hotspot bridge, an inline Ethernet sniffer, a VPN gateway, or a USB Wi-Fi/Ethernet adapter for another device.

Hardware

The hardware is a particularly interesting aspect of Flipper One, as it is has a completely custom, unique build. We will describe the technical aspects later, focusing first on the build of the device. It has a small monochrome 256x144px display, designed to show all necessary information from the custom software onboard, a touchpad, a 5-button D-pad, a back button, an app-switching button, and 5 buttons used for further navigation to power, edit, run or escape programs, and to view other options. Oh, there's a push-to-talk button as well for a pre-installed offline AI assistant. Fancy, eh?

As for the ports, it has the following:

• Two USB-C, one multipurpose, one only for power
• USB-A
• HDMI
• Two Ethernet
• 3.5mm audio jack
• MicroSD card slot
• Nano SIM card slot
• M.2 expansion module

Now finally onto the hardware on board:

• A main Rockchip RK3576 chip
• A secondary low-powered Raspberry Pi RP2350B MCU
• 8 GB RAM
• 64 GB internal storage
• 7000 mAh battery (tentatively)

As an ARM based device, the processing is comparable to the power offered by a Raspberry Pi 5, handling basic operations rather well.

Software

Here's where things get really interesting. The Flipper team intends Flipper One to be able to support the mainline Linux kernel, and has gone to the massive undertaking of having absolutely no proprietary binary blobs in any of their software. This includes the operating systems as well as the firmware. They're building FlipperOS, a layer on top of Debian, which you can do anything to.

There's also FlipperCTL, which has been created as a response to full-fledged Linux operating systems being awkward and uncomfortable on small screens. It is, therefore, a UI designed for a screen as small as that, controlled by a D-pad and a few buttons. The idea then, is to wrap utilities like ping, nmap and traceroute into this FlipperCTL interface.

Abilities

Apart from the use cases already mentioned, like as a pentesting tool or a networking agent, it can also be used as a survival desktop or a thin client, using the USB-C port to connect to a monitor. The exact details of the OS haven't been decided yet, but something slick like KDE Plasma with something resourceful like Kali Linux to suit all pentesting needs is the way Flipper is planning to go. It is also being planned as a hacker's TV media box, to be used as a media platform using Kodi or something similar. This would turn any HDMI input taking monitor into your personal media box, a luxury that is quite underrated in situations like a strange hotel room.

Not to forget, the presence of both a CPU and an MCU is by design, as the intention is to have the device functioning at low power, with the LCD and buttons, even without the main CPU running. Even when Linux is off, the device can run simple programs off of the MCU.

So what can you do?

But where do you come in? Well, the entire device is still under development and needs contributions from anyone who can provide it to be completed. Flipper has made a Developer Portal for Flipper One, where the entire development process is to be made open. That means half-baked task tracking, documentation, internal discussions, debates and everything.

You don't need to be a software developer, strictly, you could be a designer, just work on documentation, 3D models, so on and so forth. So, what all can you contribute to?

• Hardware: PCBs, antennae, chips, processors, connectors and everything in between (literally).
• Mechanics: Designing, enclosure, plastic/metal parts, mounting parts and so on.
• Linux: Firmware for the RP2350 microcontroller, relating to practically every component that the software will interact with.
• Interface: UI/UX design, visuals and graphics.
• Docs: Documentation, wikis, guides, progress made on the portal itself.
• Testing: This one you can find out for yourself.

Conclusion

Flipper's team has taken up a humongous task, trying to make this entire project totally open, the hardware design plans, the software blobs barring no small proprietary bits, and has shown courage admitting the need for help finishing the project. The Developer Portal is a great approach, inviting all the people from across the globe to contribute in any way that they possibly can. And with a beautiful passion project such as this? I'm expecting they absolutely will want to. I urge the readers to do that as well, if you have some skill and time to contribute.

This kind of project instills hope in user-level innovation after long bouts of polished, corporate products and we're all here for it. Let us know what you think of the device in the comments. Cheers!

Every once in a while, a project comes that is very adamantly heavy on its principles and it is always a breath of fresh air in a world where corporate greed forms the basis of all the services we use.

This time it is for a service that is extremely basic and essential, e-mail.

There are a few email clients for desktop Linux already. Thunderbird, Evolution, Geary, to name a few.

I am not saying that they are not good but there is always scope for improvement and new features. And Melia does just that. It brings some additional features, a privacy enthusiast will appreciate.

What Makes Melia Different?

Let's see what makes Melia so special.

Local and offline

All e-mails on the application are stored locally in a SQLite database, which means you don't have to run around with your internet connection, waiting for your data to sync. Even the credentials are stored in the OS keyring (where your OS account passwords are stored), which makes it as safe as it gets from online cyber attacks.

Supports 32+ services

There are 32 pre-programmed presets for most of the common e-mail providers such as Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, Protonmail, iCould and so on. You need to ensure the allowance of an SMTP connection from the plan that you have on your particular service, however.

Contact management

If you are particular about managing the contacts, Melia builds the address book automatically from sent and received emails. You can edit it and organize it as you want. It also helps with instant autocomplete when composing a mail. You also get stats on each contact.

Rules for a more organized inbox

Get statements from your bank, boring but good to keep for the future? Create a rule and send it automatically to a folder. Your inbox remains clean, and the emails are preserved.

There are many more ways to use the rules and organize the inbox on Melia.

Proper HTML email rendering

HTML-based emails are everywhere, and they need to be displayed the same way they are intended to. Melia uses Shadow DOM isolation, intelligent dark mode transformation, and post-render quality audits to display your favorite newsletters, like FOSS Weekly, beautifully.

Search across accounts

There's a unified full-text search that can find anything across all the accounts that you've added to the client at blazing fast speeds (especially considering all the e-mails are available offline).

Privacy and Security Take Center Stage

There are some really great security features, solving some issues, which I admit didn't even know were issues. The entire focus is on security with verifiable zero telemetry, and privacy instead of analytics, such as:

Tracking pixels neutralized

Some services use tracking pixels to mark e-mails as read back to the sender. The tracking pixels are thus neutralized on Melia, preventing a great deal of invasive telemetry.

Automatic suspicious sender flagging

The senders whose names don't match with the ones assigned to the address are automatically flagged, preventing a lot of scam/spam e-mails that one might receive.

Message authentication

All e-mails received are authenticated against SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.

One-click unsubscribe

The worst part of being spammed by a service is getting unrequited e-mails all day annoyingly. Good news is that you an unsubscribe them with just one click, making the whole process much easier.

There are still more minor features, all of which you can check out here.

Transparency You Don’t Usually Get in Email Clients

Apart from the privacy features, Melia prides itself on the transparency it provides to the users. What contributes to that? I'm glad you asked:

Trust center

There's an inbuilt Trust Center, which allows users to block or restrict the activities of the senders, giving you the option to block out e-mail addresses or entire domains, with a full activity log and statistics of all changes made to block or trust any sender.

Connection monitor

The Connection Monitor feature that shows exactly what server the information is coming from or going to in real time, making it as clear as possible that Melia only talks to the servers.

A Simple, Familiar Interface

Melia is built on Electron, which means the interface will translate consistently to any distribution you might want to use. Some will scoff at Electron but it does provide a rather beautiful graphical interface, in my opinion.

They have a full explanation as to why they chose Electron despite the bad rep it gets, and their answer is satisfactory considering it works well, safe, and "claims to keep the RAM usage within 250MB".

The interface itself is slick and simple. There are 2 vertical panels: account list and categories, list of e-mails on the selected category, and the e-mail itself. There's a possible fourth panel if you open the Connection Monitor.

It comes with two inbuilt themes, dark and light, and both are easy on the eyes. Theme can be switched manually or automatically based on your system theme. There are several buttons on top to easily access some of the features, like creating a new e-mail, search, contacts, Connection Monitor, Trust Center and settings. Speaking of which, the settings provide some very simple options, such as:

• Theme, and list density
• Import/export options
• Font settings
• Sync settings (default being every 5 minutes)
• Sound notification settings (you can set a custom one for new mails, opening the app, deletion, etc.)
• Licensing and updates

There's an easy to access sync button right on top of the accounts list on the left panel. There are also two toggle switches on the bottom panel, for sound and theme.

My Experience Setting Up Melia

Initially, I ran into some issues setting up Melia.

Two of my accounts, Google and Protonmail, were being difficult to set up. Then I realized the errors I was making.

First, that Gmail requires 2-step-authentication for it to be set up on Melia, so after doing that, there wasn't an issue.

As for Protonmail, however, using it on an external client isn't a feature available on the free tier, which made it not possible for me to sync up.

So just make sure you read the instructions when setting up accounts; they're usually pretty clear and tell you exactly what to do.

Installing Melia on Linux

Since Melia claims to be an e-mail client for Linux, it offers several choices of packages. So, you have Deb package, AppImage, Snap and Flatpak. You won't find it in the distribution's repository because the software is not open source.

While Debian and Ubuntu users have the deb package option, rest of the distros can choose among AppImage, Flatpak and Snap.

Final Thoughts: Is Melia Worth Trying?

Melia makes several claims and backs all of them up well. It is secure, transparent, easy on the eyes, and very simple to use. The functions all work very stably, primarily including writing and reading e-mails.

It is definitely worth a shot if you want to give it a trial shot with just one account, and then you can decide for yourself if it is worth the $10 to add your other accounts as well.

I would have been much more happier if it was open source. It's one of the classic cases where software seems so much like open source but is not actually.

What do you think of Melia? Let us know in the comments.

It started with one thing. I don’t know why… but somehow, it turned into a debate no one expected.

I could not help taking a walk in Linkin Park ;)

Okay. Back to serious stuff. Weird but serious stuff.

So, last month, Mozilla unveiled the new Firefox mascot, named Kit. That's a cute-looking macot, by the way.

Mozilla shared a post in their official subreddit. A couple of weeks later, someone noticed the use of'pronouns in that post and all hell broke loose. What was supposed to bring "warmth and familiarity", brought heated arguments and boycott threats.

As you can see above, instead of "it", they/them was used in that post, potentially indicating the assignment of non-binary gender identity to them. More on this in the later section of this article.

Hi everyone, if you’ve been poking around our recent updates, you might have noticed a new mascot showing up a little more intentionally. We figured it’s time to introduce them properly. Meet Kit. And before you ask, Kit is neither fox nor red panda, they’re a firefox of course.

The discussion gained traction around April 11, when Brian Lunduke highlighted the pronoun usage and thus bringing the topic into wider debate.

How the Internet Reacted (Predictably)

As you can imagine, the internet reacted really well, being "very accepting and non-controversial". If you don't believe me, you're right. I've missed April's fool by a huge margin to even consider making that joke.

The “Woke” Debate and Boycott Calls

The outrage was very evident on X (Twitter) and Reddit. Some people immediately jumped ship, posting screenshots of them uninstalling Firefox.

Some posted about how it is all a part of the "rainbow" agenda, and how they're trying to infuse politics into something that has no need for it.

Some people started posting about using the "male lion" browser, Brave.

The word "woke" was used in almost every other tweet, claiming that it was being spread like a virus.

There was a smaller faction of the critics that brought up a few points of criticism about Firefox's past. The co-founder Brendan Eich had made a significant contribution to a cause in California that sought to ban same-sex marriages (he then proceeded to resign after the outrage, and founded Brave).

Other than that, their AI integration, and the CEO's statements in favor of censorship in 2020 were also brought up.

Counter-Reactions: “Why Does This Even Matter?”

The other side consists more of indifference than support, the most frequent point being that it doesn't matter what pronouns a cartoon fox mascot uses, that the outrage was misplaced and irrelevant to everyday usage of the browser.

The word "snowflake" was thrown around from both the sides, but more to emphasize how a part of the internet was offended by something very harmless.

While some users spoke of inclusion of a large faction of people, and brownie points for spreading awareness, other users claimed alienation of "half of the population".

On a different note completely, a part of the internet went all in with the jokes, my personal favorite as a physics student being that it is only obvious that Firefox is non-binary considering their codename "Quantum", in which a particle exists in two states at the same time.

It goes without saying that there were plenty of "what does the fox say?" jokes.

The Reality: Is Kit Even Non-Binary?

The important point to remember through all of this, however, is that Mozilla did not really claim that Kit was non-binary, but only referred to Kit with "they" later in the article.

You don't have to rely on a tweet for the reference. If you read the branding guideline from Mozilla, it clearly mentions this about Kit:

Kit (he/she/they/them/it) is the user’s constant companion. Wherever they choose to roam, Kit will accompany and guide them with clever, playful encouragement and support — giving the user the confidence to run free.

Basically, Kit has no gender. Or, should I say it has whatever gender you prefer. Perhaps the person who posted from Mozilla's official account prefered the 'they/them' pronoun? Personally, I would prefer calling it "it" because it rhymes with "kit".

Final Thoughts: Much Ado About Nothing?

So what’s the takeaway?

A mascot meant to feel friendly ended up triggering a familiar internet cycle:-interpretation, outrage, and counter-outrage.

Whether you see it as inclusion, overreach, or simply irrelevant, one thing is clear; even a cartoon fox isn’t safe from becoming a debate.

What do you think? Overreaction or valid concern?