this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2024
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How do you get themes? Are [desktop]-look.org sites trustworthy? (lemmy.sdf.org)
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Hey everyone I was wondering how do you spice up your cursors, icons, themes, etc., In particular for desktop environments such as XFCE, Mate. Are there any good repositories to use?

I've taken a look at a number of apparently cloned sites like "xfce-look.org", "kde-look.org", "gnome-look.org", but while they seem to show a wide offering of themes, it seems downloading from them is blocked via uBO since it reports a "fp2" fingerprinting script without which apparently downloads are not enabled. Are those sites trustworthy? They seem to be associated to a "OpenDesktop" initiative of which the only reputation I can find is that they were added to EasyList Privacy blocklist.

If there are other alternative hubs or repos from which to theme a distro (as agnostically as posisble) that'd be welcome info.

Cheers. Thanks. Et cetera.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I assume they're trustworthy since that's what KDE's tool for downloading addons gets them from.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Oh? Is that tool desktop-agnostic? It'd be interesting to be able to download those themes considering ATM I've tried to adapt the block in uBO in various ways but apparently the site will resist any attempt until uBO is fully disabled, which is a permission I don't grant nilly-willy to websites, not even purported FOSS ones.

Or if you have a uBO rule that allows downloading from those sites, they might be of interest to share.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Nowadays I mainly get themes from KDE's system settings since uBlock hasn't allowed me to directly install them from the "look" sites, but when I have downloaded and installed themes from those sites (mainly from gnome-look when I used GNOME) they've been legit, so those particular sites have been trustworthy enough to me. It's easiest to just go through your DE's system/theme settings and install them from there if your DE has that feature, though. Most of the themes you'll find on the "look" sites will also be listed there.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

kde-look, etc... and 'pling.com' haven't caused any issues so far, SFAIK. That said, it's apparently all user upload. There's (probably tiny, but not zero) room for shenanigans in that regard.

I don't use their app. Instead, I download the things I like and manually vet them to make sure nothing untowards is going on. There never has been, so I'm probably a bit paranoid.

A LOT of the time, that theme, icon set, cursor, or whatever else you like will ALREADY be in your distro's repos. It's usually quick and easy to check, and then do the manual download and visually inspect if it's not available. Installing just means sticking the unzipped folder in your .themes or .icon folders, appropriately.

Protip: A lot of themes, fonts, icon sets, and the like are starting to offer customizable downloads. For example, if you like Bibata cursor, you can go to their website and do all customized colors to match your favorite theme: https://www.bibata.live/studio

Iosevka font is another one that does this. You can pick and choose glyph features for a custom version: https://typeof.net/Iosevka/customizer#gh-light-mode-only

(These are things you could do with the source code, but the online customizers make it easier for newer folks.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Knowing about the customized downloads aspect is interesting, and it probably solves what I want from some sources (eg.: bookmark / script some download options), thanks.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Fingerprinting doesn't necessarily mean something nefarious, although in this case it's a little weird. I've used those scripts which track users' mouse movements and clicks so I can replay visits, just to evaluate how the site is working, and uBlock tends to throw a fit when it finds them on my sites (which I guess is what it's supposed to do, but still doesn't mean anything bad was going to happen with the data.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

It's quite weird considering it's a site for FOSS stuff and thus has a nontrivial, huge overlap with people understanding of basic privacy in modern web. Anyway. At the moment I'm salvaging this by just checking what themes are popular in those sites and searching for their official repos in DDG just in case they have Releases. But it certainly is not the best workflow.

~~Obtainium for Linux Desktop when~~