Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

blog.pushbullet.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 811 posts

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#111

Post by theshrike79 »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #105
jtxx wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ProtonMail has come a long way as a replacement for Gmail as well. Suuuper happy with them, they're really responsive to feature requests and support inquiries. I requested for an iOS feature to choose browsers so I could open all links from PM in Firefox. They had it implemented in a month or something... it a quick fix but that impressed me. hence me shilling here They recently added ProtonCalendar too.

Switching email isn't nearly as friction-free as switching your browser. Not only do you have to change your email in every service you've registered for, you also need to convince your friends and other contacts to use the new email.

It's a year-long project in the minimum:

1: Start up new email (for me it was Fastmail) and preferably get your own domain

2: Forward all mail from gmail to your new account

3: Create a rule that flags messages that are still delivered to gmail, go through them at your leisure and swap to the new address

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#112

Post by andrewmutz »

danpalmer wrote: post #53

As much as we can criticise Google's handling of this situation, the fact that the developer was able to reduce permissions from accessing data on _all websites_ down to _their website_, as well as tighten up a few other permissions, shows that Google is correct that the extension is asking for more than it needs. I hope the developer finds another load of permissions they can tighten up, resubmits, and is approved.…

Extension developers monetizing their extensions by selling the data that they get from users is a big problem. It's the reason that I don't freely install useful extensions that I find today. I have no way to distinguish those who sell my data from those who dont.

I love that Google is starting to solve this problem, and from my perspective an extension that is sending and receiving SMS messages should not be requesting the ability to read and change all data on all websites that I access.

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#113

Post by bosswipe »

danpalmer wrote: post #53

As much as we can criticise Google's handling of this situation, the fact that the developer was able to reduce permissions from accessing data on _all websites_ down to _their website_, as well as tighten up a few other permissions, shows that Google is correct that the extension is asking for more than it needs. I hope the developer finds another load of permissions they can tighten up, resubmits, and is approved.…

The big crime isn't the request to reduce permissions. The big crime is the lack of details and lack of communication. It's having to drop everything and work in a panic trying to guess how to please the faceless mysterious robot.

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#114

Post by jeromegv »

devit wrote: post #74

The fact that they were requesting https://*/* and http://*/* (i.e. full control over all your accounts) without it being absolutely necessary reflects terribly on them. Still not clear why localhost (which can mean root access to the local machine since it may have localhost-only services that enable that) and cookies access is needed, also http://*.pushbullet.com is unnecessary since they should always use HTTPS. I…

Nobody is against enforcing better behaviors from developers, the issue is that they are not telling anyone what those issues are. I don't know why you can always count on someone to defend a multi-billion corporation against small companies, is there no empathy left?

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#115

Post by Fezzik »

minikites wrote: post #89
wlesieutre wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome is a trivially easy product to switch off of compared to other Google properties like Gmail and YouTube. Have you tried Firefox recently?

I've been using Fastmail for more than a decade and I don't know why someone would trust something as important as email to a company like Google.

I second the Fastmail vote. I have been a happy user for... maybe 3 years now? A while at least. The web UI on mobile and desktop is second-to-none (I love not having an app) and the spam filtering is as good or better than gmail and the other big players.

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#116

Post by OJFord »

I stopped using pushbullet because I realised its access made me a bit uncomfortable, but had I had the 'So, can we cut any of these permissions?' paragraph to read at the time, that may have reassured me. Nice to see it not only being investigated (even if it took Google's vague threat to spur it on) but positively so; seen as 'A big win!'.

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#117

Post by raegis »

thorum wrote: post #94

Does your browser extension really need to access localhost/* - as in, port 80 on my local machine? That would make me very uncomfortable about installing the extension. Would it be possible to restrict the extension to accessing a specific port or endpoint that is used by PushBullet?

Right, this suggests the app either (1) runs a web server on the client device, or (2) wants to access a third party webserver on the client device. I don't know if this is common. Or maybe I don't know/understand why this is needed.

Also, isn't allowing access to the app's website the same as allowing access to any website? Can't you just redirect?

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#119

Post by Guzba »

yawniek wrote: post #103

i guess removing plaintext http and localhost should fix this.

We never use plaintext http so that is a reasonable thing to remove for our first-part domain (pushbullet.com).

We use localhost to communicate with our desktop application. An example is preventing both our extension and desktop apps from showing notifications on the same computer (our apps are all about notifications so this would get unacceptable very fast). Maybe if we limit it to just the local port we use? Seems like it can't hurt to try that too.

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#120

Post by komali2 »

celticninja wrote: post #92
jonny_eh wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Email me pat [at] trypigeon [dot] co and I can send you some of the things I did that maybe have helped. Please post here so everyone else can learn too.

I assume GP is trying not to help those the automated system intends to catch

That's a lot of good faith you're giving these automated systems...
Post reply on HN