For the trial hashwall, the browser just does some heavy computations. I guess I should add a warning there, it's probably does have battery impact if you're using a phone for whatever reason.
I'll make a note on the UI elements. Honestly hadn't thought about the punycode usecase, good catch.
> For the trial hashwall, the browser just does some heavy computations.
Yeah, I figured that out, but someone else might think you are trying mine some *coin or something. I am not sure if I would mind it if you did, but it would be good to tell up front what you are doing. It does seem to be a much better than recaptcha.
The fact that it works is good enough for me. I am going fiddle a little more before I sign up, but it looks like this is fills my needs.
I clicked for a trial... after a while I entered my phone, received an SMS, and no indication of what to do with the code I received. No place to enter the code in the web page, nothing.
Second attempt, and I got a place to put the code. Then, while I was filling up the registration data, the page refreshed and started all over.
Third attempt finally worked...
Not the best on-boarding experience, but hey it really is cheap!
> To activate a trial account, you will need a reasonably modern browser and a phone number that can receive SMS texts.
It makes no mention of the use of a "hashwall" ... It gives no indication of what the user's browser is going to do ... Just a progress meter with a note saying it will take about 3 minutes.
This feels fishy. Especially if a user doesn't know how to get into the developer console, find out what's running etc.
Just completed my signup. I am going to check if the domain that failed to work with forwardemail.net[1] will work with your service.
If it does, then I'll say goodbye to my $36 and hello to your service.
Update: While setting up, I noticed:
- Ownership record content in `code.codebox` does not fit in the content area and extends entirely too far to the right. I had to inspect and copy out of developer tools.
- In general, UI elements seem not properly aligned, contained.
These are not deal breakers to me. The site might actually benefit from going more old school. Trying to fit everything in a narrow box with large font sizes and padding is hard.
Update: I had already clicked on CloudFlare instructions. It's the friendly stuff that has the problems I mention above. The actual information at the bottom of the page is actually displayed the way I would have expected.
Update: After creating the DNS records, I noticed the checks were still failing. So, I replaced the actual IDN in the textbox with punycode and the DNS checks worked. It would be a better user experience if the punycode conversion step was handled by the UI.
Update: Created a new user on the custom domain. Login box does not accept IDN either but the email composer does show the from address using IDN instead of punycode.
Update: I was able to exchange email with a Gmail user. Did not go to SPAM. But, in my reply, Gmail did give a scary warning about the IDN. To be clear, there is nothing the email provider can do about that :-)
I'll try out a few more custom domains and very, very likely switch. Thank you and good luck.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27523038