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

kodfabrik.com

401–410 of 530 posts

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

#401

I get it, Google loves to automate stuff to save money. Makes sense, I agree. But I'm seriously wondering if all the people in charge of automating such processes are those delusional ego-programmers who think they can solve anything with machine learning, aka "AI". Really, I cannot understand that there aren't basic safeguards in place like "hey this extension got repeatedly flagged and when a human finally reviewed…

The other explanation is that they don't really want users to have most browser extensions. The browser extensions either become features that google wants to embed in the browser, or things they don't want, for business reasons. In either case it is better if the extension dies after a year or so. BTW, this doesn't have to be a conscious choice of anyone at Google, it could just be the way the incentives turn out.

Given all the recent postings on HN lately about the DoJ sniffing around google re: anti-trust.... You'd think this would be a really bad time to be doing this...

Isn't one of the 'main' criteria around anti-trust how a company impacts the consumer ? this sort of thing sounds harmful to the consumer (fewer choices, actively taking down products consumers use, etc.)

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

#402
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…

[deleted]

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

#403
post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels like 1994 all over again. In 1994 you had one dominant software monopoly in Microsoft. Today you have several: Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook with dominance in individual spheres of influence. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

In 1994 Microsoft didn't arbitrarily ban applications on their OS.

They made PC makers pay a license fee per computer even if the computer didn’t ship with Windows.

They coined the term embrace, extend, extinguish. See the history of Internet Explorer.

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

#404

It's a shame that so many of the comments have to do with left-pad. Kozmos was a great piece of software and I will miss it even though I haven't used it in a while. It came very close to how I personally think a bookmarking service should work, which is pretty incredible for something made by a single person. Seems like a lot of people have been complaining about the Chrome extension store lately. I wonder what's go…

I would really benefit from this product. I'm working across three computers and I have book marks all over the place. A central repository that enhances searching and categorization would be awsome.

Does this suit your needs? https://histre.com/

I'm the person building it, so please let me know if you have any questions.

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

#405
post #269
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…

Dealing with Google these days seems a lot like dealing with an authoritarian government. To operate safely on Google's platforms, you need a friend who works at Google who can vouch for you as their over-eager police keep trying to put you in jail.

Having friends (software engineers, SREs, etc) at Google used to be the way to get a human to look at something but these days it gets you nothing.

You’re better off with a highly rated news.yc post.

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

#406
I remember when the Free Software movement really started to make inroads into the corporate world, which in my circles was the late 90s / early 2000s.

It was like a revelation.

No longer were we tied to inflexible, command-and-conquer style platforms. We could fix bugs ourselves, instead of waiting for years for vendors to maybe fix the bugs we diligently reported.

We could distribute our own libraries and packages in minutes, with licenses of our own choice. There was no corporate gatekeeper standing in the way. (But what of security, you ask? Look at Lenovo and Superfish ... that was a MITM attack produced by the supposed gatekeepers).

Now it seems things have come full circle, and a younger generation of developers is discovering, once again, that writing software for closed, proprietary systems is a mug's game.

Only now, those platforms seem even more strongly entrenched, courtesy the mobile duopoly and web monopoly.

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

#407
I have a theory about Google: They're using AI to handle moderation (among other tasks) and it's sort of effective but fails in a lot of frustrating cases, but they cannot admit that the lack of explainability is a serious flaw in their model or that they'd actually need to have humans in the loop to filter out the garbage experiences. Instead, they use humans but treat them almost like bots (probably easier to build more training datasets that way) and put up a hermetically sealed firewall between these moderators and the public.

Google briefly disabled my Google account last year, and it spooked me. I had created a "brand account" to use with YouTube, and for some reason the new account was flagged for suspension within the first day. I was annoyed, but it didn't bother me too much, and I submitted my appeal (aside: I always feel wonderful having no clue what I'm appealing - I'm pretty sure even the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany would have given me the dignity of knowing what I'd been convicted of before the trial + execution/Gulag). Two days later, I woke up to two emails from Google: the first indicating that my main Google account - the one where I have my email, several domain names and YouTube TV - had been suspended; the second indicating that the team reviewed my appeal and had found I hadn't violated any policies and my account had been reinstated, but that I'd need to login soon. I logged in posthaste and found that my brand account was still disabled, but at least I could read and backup my email. (At the time I also happened to be in salary negotiations with my then-client and now employer. Really wonderful timing.)

I tried to submit another appeal on the brand account suspension, explaining that I'd received a reinstatement email referencing the original ticket number, and that all their team had done was erroneously disable and reenable my main account. This time, I got a response saying that I already had an appeal pending so I'd need to wait for it to be resolved. If I really cared that much, I could have tried again to explain again that actually it was their mistake, yada yada, but it wasn't worth it. I didn't want my account to be suspended again with very little recourse other than trying to use my network to get something done internally. Like with a corrupt cop, the prudent strategy was to just walk away and avoid conversation.

I've since stopped using Chrome, and I find that I prefer DuckDuckGo to Google (DDG feels like Google Search used to before $GOOG started blindly trusting deep learning to solve everything). I have hardened my resolve against ever touching an Android device, and I use an adblocker zealously. I haven't fully moved my mail or DNS stuff away, but I am much more cautious. I didn't realize in 2004 when I signed up for Gmail that I'd be entrusting my life's records to an organization that makes the DMV look like an expert at efficiency and customer support.

I'd hope that OP and the various other developers here could maybe band together and maybe consult a lawyer. I have a feeling that given the legal realities of discrimination law and the like, Google's policies and enforcement procedures are bound to be in violation, especially considering the law in its home state. Google's behavior is not merely evil in these cases, but evil and incompetent.

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

#408
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…

That's very sad to hear, I've been an avid user of HabitLab. Thank you so much for developing this tool! I wonder if you've ever considered doing a Chromium fork with the HabitLab interventions integrated deeper into the browser? I think there's a lot of potential and interest for a productivity-oriented browser that helps stay focused and develop good time management skills.

Good luck getting drm content to work on a chromium fork.

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

#409

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…

> With leftpad he told Kik, "fuck you" In response to a threat starting with "We don’t mean to be a dick about it" and ending with "our trademark lawyers are going to be banging on your door and taking down your accounts and stuff like that", I did say "fuck you" to Kik. If that makes me the character in your mind, enjoy your imagination.

Vote with both of my hands

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

#410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, everyone's known that platform dependence is risky, and every decade or so we "learn our lesson" but then forget the moment the next cool platform comes along if it has enough users.

its not so much forgotten as aggressively dismissed and mocked as tin foil hattery.

It’s almost like the companies with more money than governments and complete control over what content users see might shape the world to keep their profits high.

One way to tell if a conspiracy is crazy is if it doesn’t benefit rich people. This pretty clearly passes that test.

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