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u/breadislifeee

▲ 16 r/ecommerce

Tired of building on other people’s platforms

I run a tiny ecommerce agency with just me and a designer, and lately I’ve been getting really frustrated with the platforms we use.

Shopify feels like I build everything and then disappear. Clients take over right away, the partner fees barely add up to anything meaningful, and most of the credit ends up going to Shopify. Webflow is fine for landing pages, but it starts hitting limits once you need to manage larger product catalogs or more complex ecommerce workflows.

On top of building the actual stores, I also have to help clients manage suppliers through sourceready, track product info, and make sure inventory and pricing stay accurate. That part creates a lot of extra work, and most platforms don’t really help much with it. It’s not just about the website. A lot of the real work is keeping product data organized and consistent, especially when every client sources products differently.

I’m starting to wonder if building my own platform from scratch would be cheaper long term, or if there’s a better tool out there that I haven’t found yet.

Has anyone here tried alternatives that actually let agencies control the brand, build recurring revenue, and not feel like you’re just building on someone else’s platform every time?

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u/breadislifeee — 1 day ago
▲ 0 r/browsers

chrome scored 29, firefox 52, librewolf 74 on the same full privacy scan with a vpn active

I've been running a commercial VPN for about a year and assumed my setup was reasonably tight. Ran a full browser privacy scan across three configurations yesterday and the gap between them was much bigger than I expected.

Chrome with default settings and the VPN active: 29 out of 100. The WebRTC check came back Critical because STUN was exposing my local 192.168.x.x address right past the VPN tunnel. Canvas entropy flagged as a Warning with the rendering hash unique enough to track across sessions. Worst part was the DNS module showing my queries weren't even routing through the VPN's servers. They were hitting my ISP's resolver directly.

Firefox with uBlock Origin and privacy.resistFingerprinting toggled on: 52. WebRTC flipped to Safe because I'd disabled media.peerconnection in about:config. Canvas was still a Warning though, and font enumeration caught 14 uncommon fonts bumping entropy up.

LibreWolf with zero tweaks out of the box: 74. Almost every module came back Safe, which I expected. What I didn't expect was the audio fingerprint check still flagging a Warning. Apparently the AudioContext rendering signature can produce a somewhat unique hash even in LibreWolf unless you add extra hardening extensions. Canvas was uniform, WebRTC completely off, DNS routed correctly through the tunnel.

The Chrome DNS finding was the real surprise. I thought enabling DoH in settings would handle it, but the network egress probe showed my real ISP resolver location regardless. Chrome was falling back to the system resolver because my VPN's DNS wasn't configured as the OS level primary. I'd been "protected" for months while broadcasting my ISP to every site I visited. The fingerprint checks all ran locally in my browser so at least those results never left my machine, but the DNS misconfiguration was real and I had no idea.

The scanner is open source at github.com/qruiqai/leakish if you want to read the detection logic or self host it with Docker. No signup needed to run the full scan.

Scores are relative for comparing setups, not an absolute safety grade. LibreWolf's 74 doesn't mean it's invisible; Chrome's 29 doesn't mean it's hopeless. The useful part is seeing exactly which modules fail and deciding what tradeoffs you're actually willing to make. For me the DNS fallback alone was worth the ten minutes it took to run everything.

u/breadislifeee — 3 days ago
▲ 2 r/homestead

Finally got the mosquito netting up on the gazebo and i’m glad i didn’t give up halfway through

Been spending more evenings outside lately, so getting the mosquito netting installed on our gazebo moved way up the priority list once the bugs started coming out. The gazebo itself went up fine, but the netting turned into its own little project. Ours is one of the Costway hardtop models where the mesh feeds through tracks around all four sides. Sounded straightforward in theory. In reality, i spent a good amount of time fighting twisted mesh, hooks popping out, and one panel that somehow ended up backwards without me noticing until way too late 🙃

What helped most was stretching the netting out flat on the ground first instead of trying to untangle it while standing on a ladder. Also learned pretty quickly this goes way smoother with two people. One feeding the hooks through the track, the other guiding the mesh so it doesn't bunch up halfway.Finally got everything hanging right yesterday evening. Sat out there afterward listening to the frogs and crickets without getting swarmed for once, which honestly made the whole frustrating install feel worth it.

reddit.com
u/breadislifeee — 7 days ago
▲ 74 r/SolarDIY

turned my backyard shed into a fully off grid office

36 year old software developer here. Been fully remote since 2020 and my wife and I had our second kid last year. Working from the kitchen table wasn't cutting it anymore and we needed the spare bedroom for the baby.

We have a 10x12 shed in the backyard that was just storing bikes and lawn stuff. Decided to convert it into a proper office so I could have some separation between work and home.

The problem was no power out there. Running underground cable from the house would have been expensive and required permits and trenching. Started looking at off grid options.

Ended up building a solar setup that powers my whole work day. 600W of panels on the shed roof, a Victron MPPT 100/50, and a Vatrer Power 12V 460Ah self heating LiFePO4 battery. It's overkill, but I wanted to run everything without thinking about it.

Office setup draws:

  • Desktop computer with dual monitors: about 150W average
  • Laptop dock when using the company machine: 65W
  • LED desk lamp: 10W
  • Router and mesh point: 20W
  • Space heater in winter: 800W (only when needed)
  • AC unit in summer: 600W (portable unit, runs intermittently)

On a typical workday, I use about 1.2kWh. The 460Ah battery gives me almost 5kWh usable so I have tons of headroom. Even in winter, when heating is needed I can get 3 solid days without sun.

The shed itself is insulated now with rigid foam and a small window AC unit. I ran Ethernet from the house for reliable internet and have a backup LTE modem just in case.

The best part is the separation. I walk out the back door in the morning and I'm at work. Walk back in at 5 and I'm home. The physical boundary helps my brain switch modes way better than just closing a laptop in the kitchen.

The 460Ah battery is definitely overkill for most people but I love never having to think about power. I can work a full day, leave everything running, and still have 70% battery left when I shut down. Solar tops it off by noon the next day usually.

Total cost was about $3,200, including the battery, panels, inverter, and insulating the shed. Cheaper than running power from the house and way cooler to be completely off grid.

u/breadislifeee — 11 days ago
▲ 3 r/relationships

I (28F) have a coworker (30F) whose style I’ve always admired. She dresses in a way that feels polished but effortless, and I once complimented her outfit and asked where she usually shops. She mentioned a few brands, including Few Moda, COS, and Reformation.

After that, I browsed some of those sites on my own and ended up buying a few pieces. I wasn’t trying to copy her exact outfits, just exploring brands she recommended because I liked the style. The issue is that one of the dresses I bought turned out to be the same one she owns. I had never seen her wear it before, so I genuinely didn’t know.

A few days ago, we both wore the same dress to work. It was awkward, and I got the impression she thought I was copying her, especially since I had asked her where she shops. She didn’t directly say anything, but her reaction made me feel self-conscious.

Should I avoid wearing clothes from brands she mentioned, or am I overthinking this?

TL;DR:
Bought clothes from brands my coworker recommended and accidentally wore the same dress as her to work. She seemed annoyed, and I’m wondering if I should avoid those brands or if I’m overthinking it.

reddit.com
u/breadislifeee — 19 days ago