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Show HN: How many miles do you think you've scrolled today?

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Re: Show HN: How many miles do you think you've scrolled today?

#81

Post by prashantb »

jfoster wrote: post #71
erikig wrote: post #65

Can "Read and change all your data on the websites you visit" Chrome extensions that require such extensive permissions make me extremely nervous and I don't think I'm alone. Is there a way to build this in a way that didn't require such elevated privileges?

It's been a while since I dabbled in Chrome extensions, but if nothing has changed, then not as a Chrome extension, unfortunately. If you mean theoretically, then of course; Chrome could let extensions subscribe to particular event hooks and whatnot and get very fine-grained about it. I expect that would actually be too fine-grained for most users, but what they have at the moment is a system where installing almost…

On the last part, I agree with you from a developer's point of view as well. The review process is a shambles at the moment. Sometimes the review process can take weeks and one can still get rejected with no explanation. I understand the need for a manual review when an extension asks for powerful permissions like this one does but an approval time of more than a week is a bit much. And every subsequent update to the extension (even a small description change) also goes through the same review process. Imagine a critical bug fix taking more than a week for approval! It feels like they want to shut down their doors for individual developers. In comparison, firefox took only 2 hours to approve the same extension.

Re: Show HN: How many miles do you think you've scrolled today?

#82

Post by chapplap »

mceachen wrote: post #75
dddddaviddddd wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could inspect the source code and build it yourself (about 300 lines of JavaScript + JQuery): https://github.com/prashantbaid/scrolltrotter

The problem with any chrome extension is that there's no guarantee that the git repo matches the bag of bits that you're installing. No-prompt auto-updates exacerbate the issue. Installation of software will always require a leap of faith that the publisher doesn't have ill intent.

You can install the extension directly from a cloned copy of the Github repo (basically as if you were the extension developer). No auto-updates or anything since it's just loaded from some files on your disk. Chrome will nag you about it from time to time though since getting people to install unsigned extensions is a common attack vector.

Re: Show HN: How many miles do you think you've scrolled today?

#84

Post by prashantb »

unnouinceput wrote: post #48

"You will need Google Chrome to install most apps, extensions and themes. Download Google Chrome" Yeah buddy, just wait for me to install that. Any Firefox equivalent?

Here you go - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/scrolltrotter...

Re: Show HN: How many miles do you think you've scrolled today?

#85

Post by jdc »

jfoster wrote: post #71
erikig wrote: post #65

Can "Read and change all your data on the websites you visit" Chrome extensions that require such extensive permissions make me extremely nervous and I don't think I'm alone. Is there a way to build this in a way that didn't require such elevated privileges?

It's been a while since I dabbled in Chrome extensions, but if nothing has changed, then not as a Chrome extension, unfortunately. If you mean theoretically, then of course; Chrome could let extensions subscribe to particular event hooks and whatnot and get very fine-grained about it. I expect that would actually be too fine-grained for most users, but what they have at the moment is a system where installing almost…

I expect that would actually be too fine-grained for most users [...]

Even with that level of detail on the backend, there's no need to expose it all the user by default. That is, you could tell the user about group various related events together (eg. mouse, page load, etc) and power users could also drill-down if they like.

Re: Show HN: How many miles do you think you've scrolled today?

#86

Post by tempestn »

andai wrote: post #25
archview wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been developing my email habits to fit this. If my email is turning into a novel I make a point to bring the important information to the top as a TL;DR. If I forward an email chain longer then two emails I condense the email chain in my forwarded email so the reader sees and understands exactly what I need them to see. I have found that if I forward a long email chain/write a novel of an email no one reads th…

I started writing a tldr or brief summary above my posts / emails, and then I realized if I summarize properly I can just delete the original text.

Now I'm curious what this comment originally looked like.

Re: Show HN: How many miles do you think you've scrolled today?

#87

Post by mceachen »

revicon wrote: post #77
mceachen wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with any chrome extension is that there's no guarantee that the git repo matches the bag of bits that you're installing. No-prompt auto-updates exacerbate the issue. Installation of software will always require a leap of faith that the publisher doesn't have ill intent.

Try this: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-extension-s... Views the source code straight from the google store

Thanks for sharing, but that's yet another publisher I have to trust with "read and change your data on clients2.google.com, read your browsing history, manage your downloads."

It'd be great if chrome and firefox allowed open source chrome extensions to be compared with their git source tree, possibly with diffs between releases.

Still, though, how many people will go through that effort?

Re: Show HN: How many miles do you think you've scrolled today?

#88

Post by joezydeco »

inetknght wrote: post #32
joshiefishbein wrote: post #7

This would be interesting to see on my phone at the end of the day. Even having decreased my social media and news consumption considerably over the last few years, I still catch myself mindlessly scrolling from time to time. I would love the shameful alert that told me “you’ve scrolled twice as many miles as you’ve walked today” since I know the second set of metrics definitely exists. It may be what I need to quit…

I think that would actually fit very well alongside eg Apple's "You've had 30 minutes of screen time today" messages

The Apple Lisa had a "mouse odometer" in software that tracked the number of pixels moved since startup.

Re: Show HN: How many miles do you think you've scrolled today?

#89

Post by dhosek »

chippy wrote: post #19
glup wrote: post #12

I was once in a seminar led by one of the world's pre-eminent primate researchers who explained that, without any irony or humor, he refused to scroll when reading emails--Anything important should be immediately visible.

He was unaware of recent important primate conflict studies that found that top posters were in different tribes than bottom posters in emails.

Sadly, software has made it highly inconvenient to do bottom posting on e-mails. I gave up on that war years ago. Maybe around once a year—if that often—I may do an old-school interlinear reply to an e-mail.

Re: Show HN: How many miles do you think you've scrolled today?

#90

Post by dmfilipenko »

spuz wrote: post #9

A long time ago when I used to spend almost all my day in front of a computer, I wrote a program that would measure the physical distance my mouse cursor had moved thinking surely it must be several hundred meters a day. In fact it was only about 30 metres per day. I imagine to scroll a mile would take several months for the average web user.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cursor-traveler-mo... Here it is. Doing the same
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