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Show HN: Flight Penguin – Like Hipmunk, but a browser extension

flightpenguin.com

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Re: Show HN: Flight Penguin – Like Hipmunk, but a browser extension

#11

Post by maxmorlocke »

buro9 wrote: post #10

Looks nice... so I tried it. Starting airport: There are 4 around London, can I select any? Destination airport: There are 2 around Lisbon, can I select any? Already I have 8 permutations of things I don't want to think about. Got a search result but it didn't render correctly... I use noscript but this is a privileged tab and there's nothing to allow and I don't see what else it might need. Tried sorting to see if u…

Re: airports. You can select any airport or the city - which should grab them all (e.g. City of London (LON), London Heathrow (LHR), etc.).

Re: Noscript. I haven't tested with noscript, but have with most major adblockers. We do use the chrome extension API to open windows in the background to collect flight data and eventually to redirect you to for booking. I'll get it installed and see if I can replicate it. Might take a little bit, but I'll get there :)

Re: extension vs webpage. One of the biggest problems Hipmunk faced was that as the airline industry consolidated, they required OTA's and metasearch sites to sign highly restrictive agreements that prevented the site from showing all flights. We find this highly objectionable. By operating as an extension, we do not need to sign agreements to provide this data.

Re: Show HN: Flight Penguin – Like Hipmunk, but a browser extension

#13

Post by maxmorlocke »

jayzalowitz wrote: post #9

I know its nitpicky as hell, but having insane delta status like I do, I really need a skyteam filter, this is pointless otherwise, ill seriously give you the delta diamond group worth of market use if you can add that.

Adding alliances is on our near term roadmap. Should be live before the end of the month. Feel free to drop me an email (max AT flightpenguin DOT com) and I'll let you know when it's out.

Re: Show HN: Flight Penguin – Like Hipmunk, but a browser extension

#14

Post by maxmorlocke »

maxmorlocke wrote: post #11
buro9 wrote: post #10

Looks nice... so I tried it. Starting airport: There are 4 around London, can I select any? Destination airport: There are 2 around Lisbon, can I select any? Already I have 8 permutations of things I don't want to think about. Got a search result but it didn't render correctly... I use noscript but this is a privileged tab and there's nothing to allow and I don't see what else it might need. Tried sorting to see if u…

Re: airports. You can select any airport or the city - which should grab them all (e.g. City of London (LON), London Heathrow (LHR), etc.). Re: Noscript. I haven't tested with noscript, but have with most major adblockers. We do use the chrome extension API to open windows in the background to collect flight data and eventually to redirect you to for booking. I'll get it installed and see if I can replicate it. Might…

I tested locally with noscript installed. After giving the extension permissions to run scripts, everything worked for me. If you've blocked FlightPenguin, chrome extensions, or any of the sites we collect data from, you're going to have issues. Chrome extensions unsurprisingly rely heavily on JavaScript.

Re: Show HN: Flight Penguin – Like Hipmunk, but a browser extension

#15

Post by TheHideout »

Looks like something I'd definitely use. But first, how do I ensure that my personal, browsing, and financial data is not shared with third parties and not collected for anything other than core functionality?

Also, what is the purpose of the subscription?

edit for typo

Re: Show HN: Flight Penguin – Like Hipmunk, but a browser extension

#19

Post by maxmorlocke »

TheHideout wrote: post #15

Looks like something I'd definitely use. But first, how do I ensure that my personal, browsing, and financial data is not shared with third parties and not collected for anything other than core functionality? Also, what is the purpose of the subscription? edit for typo

There shouldn't be any reference to a subscription. Can you let me know where you saw one? We used to have this setup as a paid extension, but pivoted away as that business model didn't work as well as we'd have liked.

Re: privacy and data. You can certainly review the settings we request and our terms of service - we ask to run the extension on a number of travel sites we interact with. We only collect your search intent data, progress around searching, and other similar lifecycle events as your search to aid us in product development. That being said, our long term monetization strategy is to sell search intent data - not your personal or financial data, and definitely not showing ads.

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