{"slug": "wander-console-0-6-0", "title": "Wander Console 0.6.0", "summary": "Wander Console 0.6.0, the sixth release of the decentralized web console, has been published. The primary change is the complete removal of the `via` referral query parameter from recommended URLs, as it was found to be a misfeature that caused some websites to fail loading pages. The update also includes minor user interface adjustments and fixes, alongside the launch of a new community page called the Wander Console Network.", "body_md": "Wander Console 0.6.0 is now available. This is the sixth release of Wander, a small, decentralised, self-hosted web console that lets visitors to your website discover interesting websites and pages recommended by a community of independent website owners. To try it, go to susam.net/wander/. To learn how it works and how to set it up on your own website, see the project README.\nThe main change in this release is the removal of support for the\nvia\nreferral query parameter, which was added to\nrecommended URLs so that website owners could identify visits coming\nfrom a Wander Console in their access logs. The via\nquery parameter was introduced in version\n0.4.0 in response to\ncommunity\ndemand, but it turned out to be a misfeature. Some websites\nrefuse to serve web pages when arbitrary query parameters are added\nto URLs. Although it was possible to turn this feature off via\nconfiguration, I would rather not keep a dubious feature that may\nprevent some pages from loading successfully. This feature has now\nbeen completely removed. See\nthis excellent\narticle by Chris Morgan to learn more about why adding arbitrary\nquery parameters to URLs is a bad idea. Commit\nb26d77c\nhas more details about the removal of this feature.\nApart from this change, there are a few minor user interface adjustments and fixes. See the changelog for more details.\nIf you own a personal website but have not set up a Wander Console yet, I suggest that you consider setting one up. You can see what it looks like by visiting mine at /wander/. To set up your own, follow the installation instructions in the README. It only involves copying two files to your web server, so the installation is very straightforward.\nAlso, check out our new community page called\nWander Console\nNetwork. This page shows a recent snapshot of all known Wander\nConsole instances along with the web pages they recommend. We have\nan IRC channel too at #wander\non irc.libera.chat\nin case you are looking for a place\nto hang out with the community.\nUpdate on 09 May 2026: See the post I Will Not Add Query Strings to Your URLs for an account of how the misguided referral query string feature was added and how it was removed.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/wander-console-0-6-0", "canonical_source": "https://susam.net/code/news/wander/0.6.0.html", "published_at": "2026-05-08 00:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-05-23 16:10:13.697882+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["open-source", "developer-tools", "web3"], "entities": ["Wander Console", "Chris Morgan", "Wander"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/wander-console-0-6-0", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/wander-console-0-6-0.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/wander-console-0-6-0.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/wander-console-0-6-0.jsonld"}}