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Show HN: Incoggo – Free Adblocker for Paywalls

incoggo.com

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Re: Show HN: Incoggo – Free Adblocker for Paywalls

#11

Post by ian-bateman »

Nextgrid wrote: post #8
_znkz wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TL;DR - we can unblock a lot of things with this approach that browser extensions can't; it also works across all browsers (esp. relevant for Safari users). Digging in, there are a few reasons actually - first is, Chrome removes extensions with this kind of functionality from the Web Store constantly (only option would be to sideload). Under the hood, Incoggo is also actually a local proxy (it adds a trusted root cer…

> it adds a trusted root cert during the install process That's a non-starter for me. I do not want an application to be able to MITM all traffic. Surely you just need to be able to MITM certain domains (the ones of the paywalled websites you unblock), can't you just create individual self-signed certificates for those and trust them one by one?

That's understandable - if you'd like a work around for now, the app has a 'pause' feature (which, if active, will cease to proxy traffic completely - you can just turn it on briefly as needed, then 'pause' it after loading the article).

The reason for the root cert is that in short order (after cleaning up our infra, etc.) we're actually planning to expand to a full-spectrum adblocker.

Re: Show HN: Incoggo – Free Adblocker for Paywalls

#12

Post by techthumb »

This is a lot of security to give away in order to read news articles for free.

From https://incoggo.com/faq/

  If you’re a very security-minded individual (or you use your computer for very sensitive tasks), before using Incoggo you may want to be aware that the application does the following:

  Upon installation, Incoggo adds a file to your system’s sudoers.d folder that whitelists specific commands from requiring a sudo password to perform. (This allows Incoggo to manage your system proxy settings, kill certain processes on shutdown / restart, and perform tasks related to Incoggo’s auto-updating feature without requiring that a sudo password be prompted each time.)

  Incoggo loads external Javascript files when you visit specific domains (i.e. those we filter paywalls / clear cookies on / clear storage on / etc.).

  Incoggo overwrites a few system defaults (re: open page / process limits) at runtime for performance reasons.

  Upon installation, Incoggo also installs a trusted root certificate in your system keystore. This is required for Incoggo’s advanced filtering functionality to work (unlike the issues above – which we intend to clean up shortly – this one is a hard requirement for the app to work).

Re: Show HN: Incoggo – Free Adblocker for Paywalls

#13

Post by nomemory »

techthumb wrote: post #12

This is a lot of security to give away in order to read news articles for free. From https://incoggo.com/faq/ If you’re a very security-minded individual (or you use your computer for very sensitive tasks), before using Incoggo you may want to be aware that the application does the following: Upon installation, Incoggo adds a file to your system’s sudoers.d folder that whitelists specific commands from requiring a su…

Well at least they are transparent about all that.

Re: Show HN: Incoggo – Free Adblocker for Paywalls

#14

Post by giuliomagnifico »

It's hard for me to understand how and why you are developing an app and a website and all the other stuff for free, then I read your privacy policy and maybe I'm understand: https://incoggo.com/privacy/

Anyway thanks for the effort and the transparency, I'll consider to install it on a secondary browser just for read some articles.

Re: Show HN: Incoggo – Free Adblocker for Paywalls

#16

Post by isaec »

This is really cool, but I don't really get why full MITM is needed when all the paywall code is executed in the browser.

If news sites started using methods outside the browser for determining if you have access, like allowlisting IP addresses, how could this bypass that? Projects like bypass-paywalls-chrome [1] (which works on firefox) get the job done just fine. Is there really a scenario where this is needed to unblock a website?

Additionally, parts of the privacy policy strongly implying browsing history is collected and sold - although I may have misinterpreted this. My apologies if so. "Information We Collect When You Use... the Desktop Application... [we collect] your web browsing history (URLs that you visit)... [and] WE USE THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT... To generate and share aggregated, anonymized, or de-identified information about the web browsing activity of all of our users with our partners and other third parties for marketing, advertising, research, or similar purposes" [2].

[1] https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome

[2] https://incoggo.com/privacy/

Re: Show HN: Incoggo – Free Adblocker for Paywalls

#20

Post by cercatrova »

smoldesu wrote: post #10
deleted_account wrote: post #9

When did a paid subscription to a periodical become synonymous with advertising? That said, I hope they support video soon so I can get rid of that annoying NetflixHBOHuluDisney+ paywall.

I really hope they unblock Steam too, so I can click "play now" and not have to pay for the game. Spotify blocking would be nice too, since why should I have to pay for a digital asset? All these roadblocks just make it harder for me to access their content. What a slog!

I mean, you can do all of that today via piracy. There are modded Spotify APKs as well for Android which are quite useful too.
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