Dear friends, after a full month of intense work and countless sleepless nights, we’re thrilled to announce that NovaFuture 7.1 is now 100% up and running. And you’ll see there’s no shortage of new features. We really went all in.

First off, if you’ve been following NovaFuture, you might wonder how we jumped from version 4.3 to 7.1. Well, the short answer is we’re a bit punk 😀 The longer answer is that we had a roadmap taking us from version 4 to version 7, going through versions 5 and 6 step by step. The plan was to spread this over several months so the site would keep running smoothly. But once we rolled up our sleeves we thought, let’s give ourselves 15 days, work like crazy, and roll out everything we’ve been planning. That was the initial plan. But as anyone who’s worked in web development knows, things rarely go as expected. It ended up taking almost twice as long and a few gallons of coffee. But it was totally worth it.

You’re now on version 7.1, which we’ve named Ghost Rider in the SKY. Why that name? Because once again we like to remix legends our own way. For us, the Ghost Rider isn’t cursed, he’s 100% free. He’s an untouchable dude cruising on his flying carpet, completely out of reach of the system. And anyone trying to block his path is in for serious trouble.

Basically, it’s our way of saying we fear nothing and no one. We’re dead set on building a future that’s worth living for, on foundations very different from those imposed by billionaire reactionaries with no conscience. So they’d better watch out, because there’s a new sheriff in town and its name is NovaFuture GRITS V. 7.1! Now that the introductions are done, let’s dive into the big new features. And there’s plenty!

We’re now running on a brand new server with Debian 12

We left Ubuntu behind and switched to Debian 12 with just the essentials so the site runs at full speed. For the tech-savvy, we’ve set up a hybrid of Apache and Nginx to get the best of both worlds. And when it comes to hardware and bandwidth, let’s just say we’re pretty comfortable. Our wallet, on the other hand, is completely drained after this upgrade.

As for the server’s location, we’ve moved to Canada! Shoutout to our Canadian friends, we’re really happy to be with you 🙂 But why Canada and not the US? Great question. The truth is the US has basically turned into a fascist state politically. Free speech there seems to only apply to far-right trash, while progressive voices are told to shut up. We want no part of that, so we chose Canada to keep our freedom of expression intact. And with that, the myth of America being the land of freedom has pretty much collapsed.

Comments are back

We’ve restored comments on all articles and all data sheets. This decision came after realizing that social networks are basically online dumpsters. There’s no point in wasting our time replying on toxic platforms. From now on, we’re focusing entirely on the site and on constructive discussions. Especially for the technical sheets, comments are super helpful to push things forward. It makes everything more coherent.

Another important point: on mainstream social networks, the lifespan of a comment is at best 48 hours. After that, it’s gone and nothing gets followed up. That’s not a coincidence. It’s designed to keep you captive, forcing you to react endlessly like a headless chicken. Which means no real debates, just constant buzz-chasing that adds zero value. NovaFuture doesn’t work that way. Here, comments stay alive indefinitely and conversations can go on for the long haul. That’s exactly what makes the difference between a space where you can grow and one that just makes you dumber.

A brand new forum that makes everything better

The old forum was clunky and way too heavy on server resources. So we decided to replace it. After testing a bunch of options, we settled on the open-source engine bbPress, which has a rock-solid reputation. It’s fast, lightweight, and super reliable. And we didn’t skimp on extra features either. Here are a few highlights:

1) Subscribe to threads you care about
2) Send private replies
3) Follow or unfollow users
4) Like posts
5) Mark technical questions as solved
6) Highlight the best answer
7) Personalized profiles for every member
8) A simple yet complete editor for posting topics and replies
9) Forums can be public, members-only, or private
10) And much more 🙂

In short, we’re way ahead of Reddit on every level. And that’s not all! The cherry on top is that the forum and the site now include a fast and reliable private messaging system. We’re also offering the chance to have your own forum on NovaFuture. Just ask. And of course, you’re invited to join in as a moderator and bring your friends along.

One last detail: to keep things consistent, forums are now separated by language. The main forum is in English, and each language on the site has its own independent forum.

So there you have it. Everything’s set up. The forum may look a bit empty for now, but don’t let that fool you. There’s always someone around to answer. And in the end, it’s better to have a friendly space where you enjoy your time than one overrun with trolls, bots, and fake accounts. At NovaFuture, quality always comes before quantity.

Free ad-free blogs

Now this is a big one! And we’re really proud of it 🙂 From now on, you can create your own blog on NovaFuture with your own dedicated URL. And like everything else here, it’s 100% free, with zero trackers and absolutely no ads.

This gives you a high-quality space for your posts, with an audience of attentive readers from the start. And as a bonus, if your articles are good, we’ll publish them in novaMag for even more visibility. You can manage everything easily and in real time from your personal dashboard. But instead of a long speech, just visit this page where you’ll find all the details.

The NovaFuture mobile app

Another huge addition! We spent a lot of time on it, but the NovaFuture mobile app is now live on the Play Store. As always, it’s 100% free, ad-free, and tracker-free. The best part is that it makes the site even faster on mobile and lets you browse offline. So if you love checking NovaFuture on your phone, download the app right now on your smartphone or tablet and see for yourself how smooth everything runs.

Download the app

Better user experience and cleaner code

On the UX side, we’ve listened carefully to all your feedback since launch. We’ve applied everything we could to make the site as simple as possible to use. It may not look obvious at first glance, but there’s been a lot of serious work on this.

As for the code, no surprise here, the site runs on WordPress. And as every WP user knows, too many plugins are horribly coded, even so-called premium ones. Sure, we had a few in the beginning to save time. But now they’re gone. Apart from 4 or 5 truly useful plugins, we coded everything from scratch in-house. The difference is massive. Now we only have the functions we want, no extra weight, and no bugs caused by bad code. It’s also way easier to maintain because the code is logically organized. No more wasting hours searching for a single function. Losing a few nights of sleep for this was absolutely worth it. We’ll sleep better now.

The most visible change is that we completely rebuilt the signup and login system. It’s now faster, cleaner, and much more efficient. That’s a big step forward.

A little musical break

We definitely don’t do things like everyone else 😀 If you expected the macho cowboy version of Ghost Rider in the Sky, too bad for you! Here at NovaFuture we’re all about the party, which is why we love ska! So this one’s for all the rude girls and rude boys following NovaFuture 🙂 We love you!

Join us and become a Ghost Rider in the Sky too

Now that we’ve built exactly the architecture we wanted for the site, we’re shifting focus to new content. And trust us, some heavy stuff is coming! We’ll of course keep tweaking the site, but things are stable now, so it’ll be smooth sailing from here.

This is also a good time to remind you that NovaFuture is a COMMUNITY PROJECT. You’re warmly invited to join in through comments and forums. But you can also open your own blog, write articles, help with translations, code, design, communications… In short, all talents are welcome to help grow NovaFuture in its true open-source spirit. So if you love meaningful projects, start by signing up and become a Ghost Rider in the Sky yourself. Let’s build and move forward together for the common good. It really is that simple 😉

On behalf of the NovaFuture dream team, I just want to wish you a great time exploring the site and discovering all the new features in this latest release. And as always, if you’d like to support us with a coffee, the Buy me a Coffee button is below. You’ll also find quick share buttons to spread this post as widely as possible. Either way, thanks a lot for reading this far.