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Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

kodfabrik.com

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Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#211

Post by geza »

hanklazard wrote: post #197
geza wrote: post #157

I definitely feel for the author - the Chrome Extension team has been growing increasingly developer-hostile recently. My own open-source extension HabitLab ( https://habitlab.stanford.edu/ ) that I've been maintaining for the past 3 years is going to be removed in 2 days (got a 14-day removal notice for permissions even though all permissions it requests are used and needed, and every update I try to submit is rejec…

I'm really sorry to hear that--it looks like a useful extension and I'm sure you've put a lot of hard work into it. Naive question to you and to other extension developers here ... how does Firefox do when it comes to this issue? Is it just that the market share is so much lower that it's not worth developing for FF? I ask this as a happy FF user on mac, linux, ios.

I tried porting the extension over to Firefox when Firefox switched to WebExtensions, and at the time there were tons of incompatibilities, mostly with Firefox's Shadow DOM implementation (HabitLab is a huge and complicated codebase, porting it is non-trivial - I had an issue tracking it at https://github.com/habitlab/habitlab/issues/137 ). I'm sure it's a valid option for smaller extensions however. At the moment I'm trying to get it accepted on the Edge store, as Edge is much more compatible with Chrome extensions than Firefox.

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#212

Post by erichocean »

dade_ wrote: post #122
tdeck wrote: post #3

> Google (Robot): We'll take your extension down Me: Hey, this must be a mistake > Google (Robot): No mistake, review these policies, your extension violates one of them Me: It does not violate any of them, this is a mistake! > Google (Finally human): Oh, sorry, a mistake. Obviously someone just needs to create a robot that automatically replies to the takedown notices and disputes them, thus closing the loop!

Somehow I expect that using a bot against their bot violates user TOS part #63836370 section YQ, and they will immediately lock your accounts, associated business accounts, delete the data and offer zero recourse.

And laugh about it, because they think it's funny.

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#213

Post by geza »

lonelappde wrote: post #201
geza wrote: post #157

I definitely feel for the author - the Chrome Extension team has been growing increasingly developer-hostile recently. My own open-source extension HabitLab ( https://habitlab.stanford.edu/ ) that I've been maintaining for the past 3 years is going to be removed in 2 days (got a 14-day removal notice for permissions even though all permissions it requests are used and needed, and every update I try to submit is rejec…

Is there a workaround for users? Old builds of Chromium?

It works fine with the current versions of Chrome (and Chromium-based browsers like Edge), you'll just need to sideload it once it gets removed from the Chrome store. Alternatively, if/when I manage to get it accepted into the Edge store, you could switch to Edge.

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#214

Post by jaifraic »

oAlbe wrote: post #199
gonehome wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only main Google service I still used was Gmail (and occasionally search when DDG doesn't return something immediately useful). I'd seen comments about Fastmail over the years, but moving seemed like it would be a hassle. With more at home pandemic time I decided to just do it and have been super impressed. The Fastmail docs are really good, setting up DNS to use my custom domain had explicit steps and pictures f…

What is a truly private European based alternative to Fastmail? Other than Proton ail.

I've started to switch all my email stuff to https://uberspace.de/en/

It's a kind of shared hosting with full ssh (non-root) access. They offer a pre-installed Roundcube Webmailer, but you can host your own one as well.

I run my own Roundcube with my own Domain and configured a maildrop instance to sort incoming mails.

So far it works as a charm. The hoster is based in Germany and I trust them to be privacy-aware.

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#215

Post by lonelappde »

crummy wrote: post #120
nyreed wrote: post #24

Do you remember when browser extensions could be installed from a developer's own website and didn't require any kind of dysfunctional 'gatekeeping'? I know there are benefits to having someone vet browser extensions, but it seems a shame that they remove the self-distribution option completely when their moderation is so ineffectual.

Not saying it wasn't a better time, but I do remember the era of half a dozen IE toolbars installed on folks' computers doing God knows what.

Wouldn't a better solution be a pop-up that says "your browser has bad plug-ins. May I uninstall them for you?"

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#216

Post by riquito »

detaro wrote: post #32
Majromax wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it possible that Google writes code to automate the moderation (for lack of better word) of the extensions in the Chrome Store because they are trying to avoid paying hundreds of people to do it manually? Undoubtedly, for the Chrome Store as well as all of their other properties. Ultimately, Google's business model is about earning fractions of a cent per view/download and making it up in volume. Their profit ma…

I'm still a bit surprised they're not offering a paid support tier. That'd still suck for non-commercial extensions, but at least help with the "extension filtering is killing our business!" cases.

I'm afraid is more complicated than that. If they were to add non-mandatory paid support, any time someone were at risk of losing its extension would feel/believe it's an extortion scheme to force him to pay for support (whether that's true or not).

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#217

Post by _bxg1 »

bartread wrote: post #209

Maybe they're still angry with him about leftpad. Yes, it really is the same guy: https://kodfabrik.com/journal/i-ve-just-liberated-my-modules . And, joking aside it would be wise to bear in mind that we're reading only one side of the story here. As with leftpad, there's another side to this. With leftpad he told Kik, "fuck you" ( https://medium.com/@mproberts/a-discussion-about-the-breakin... ), and then wrought gl…

On the other hand we've seen this kind of behavior from Google time and again, even on its flagship platforms like Android and YouTube. The Chrome Extensions store is likely the bottom of the barrel when it comes to priorities, so I have no trouble believing things would be even worse there.

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#218

Post by sb8244 »

yunyu wrote: post #198
sb8244 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you go more into what they do if you try to bypass their distribution mechanism? Is there any existing posts sharing experience? I'm curious as this has always been my backup plan if Google takes this action against my extensions.

It's fine on MacOS (albeit a bit clunky), and sideloaded upgrades end up creating two copies of the extension so you'll have to ship your own autoupdater. On Windows, it's a no-go as Chrome will display a scary warning every time you start the browser: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23055651/disable-develop...

Yikes. I use macos but definitely ship up windows. Appreciate you sharing this.

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#219

Post by benibela »

jjoonathan wrote: post #53
gdulli wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just created a Google Voice account for the first time. A few hours later I asked 3 different friends to send me a text message to see if it worked. I didn't get any of them or any warning that it takes time for the number to activate. I tried again the next day, same results. That was 4-5 days ago, and still nothing. I'm abandoning Google Voice because I assume Google has abandoned it. It's not like there's anyone…

Gaslighting is the worst. It's getting more common, too. Just the other day I found out that posting links in a youtube comment makes the comment invisible to everyone else. In hindsight, disallowing links is almost certainly a good policy and it's easy to understand and appreciate why it was put in place, but why the gaslighting? Just pop up a box explaining that links aren't allowed. The gaslighting isn't going to…

Happens on other platforms, too

I had a Firefox plugin that would tweet all my bookmarks. Years later I noticed all the tweets were hidden from search

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#220

Post by nihil75 »

speeder wrote: post #22
dorkinspace wrote: post #10

It seems like trying to build a business on any Google property is simply a bad idea. Or, if you do, have an alternative ready for when Google shuts down the product or cancels your account.

My "RL" business, that has nothing to do with tech, relies heavily on Google ads, whenever we lessen the spending on them, our income drop proportionally, I am very worried about what will happen when they yank our account due to a mistake, but I am yet to figure out an alternative, other ad providers made no difference...

I made such a mistake - hosted a static page on AWS S3 with a redirect. Google didn't like that. AdWords account blocked, no one to talk to but the bots!
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