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Show HN: Firefox extension to obfuscate web page text

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Re: Show HN: Firefox extension to obfuscate web page text

#71

Post by mmis1000 »

Vinnl wrote: post #39
angelaguilera wrote: post #35

This is really nice! May I suggest an option to "deobfuscate" certain parts of the web page? For example, after you obfuscate the page with alt+shift+O, then you could click on some parts of the page to de-obfuscate them. Sometimes you want to hide only certain parts of the page while keeping others untouched (page headers/footers, titles, etc.).

Yeah I'd like to have that too. Don't know yet how I'd implement it, but logged here and happy to take Merge Requests: https://gitlab.com/vincenttunru/obfuscate/-/issues/3

Probably by

- locate the text node containing the selected text

- split the text node into 3 segment (the selected one in the middle)

- replace the selected segment with a span that has font style on it

?

I did something like this before to replace part of the text with a ruby tag.

https://codepen.io/mmis1000/pen/gOgKqba?editors=0010

Or probably you can do it the reverse the obfuscate the selected text and make it actually works like a black pen.

Although it will be definitely more complex because selection may cross multi text nodes. But the idea should apply.

Re: Show HN: Firefox extension to obfuscate web page text

#72

Post by Macha »

jodrellblank wrote: post #70
breakingcups wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely wingdings are reversible?

I tried googling "black bar font" to find what the extension dev is using without downloading the extension, but gave up when I saw the Google results and realised how unlikely I am to find "font which doesn't need downloading and installing or hosting which renders normal characters as black bars".

The linked tweet indicates "flow circular" is one such font.

It probably does need installation or hosting though.

Re: Show HN: Firefox extension to obfuscate web page text

#73

Post by bryans »

jodrellblank wrote: post #69
bryans wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that you were trying to be amusing with the Chrome comment, but in case you weren't actually aware, you only need to push the plus icon to insert a new style. It's the exact same number of clicks to accomplish that task in both browsers.

I was aware because I clicked plus[1] and pressed ctrl-v to put my firefox line in. And it broke because Chrome is "being helpful" by forcing structure in the UI, so it instantly turned into a lot of crossed out lines with yellow warning triangles, and there's there's no visible delete option, no context menu delete, it doesn't respond to the delete key, and Chrome's F12 is just so much more user-hostile than FireFox…

> with that delightful UX where it's /invisible/ until you wave the magic cursor around in the right place.

There is a button at the top of the editor, to the right of the filter input. The buttons that show up on hover are for inserting the new style at a specific position in the cascade, if needed -- but that's a rarer occurrence, which is why it's not visible by default.

> And it broke because Chrome is "being helpful" by forcing structure in the UI, so it instantly turned into a lot of crossed out lines with yellow warning triangles, and there's there's no visible delete option, no context menu delete, it doesn't respond to the delete key

I agree that one should be able to paste any CSS block or declaration and expect the style editor to parse it. But it's also worth keeping in mind that the only difference in this particular situation is pasting the declaration instead of the surrounding block, and you'd get the results you're after. Chromium's dev tools are definitely not perfect, but I think Firefox's method is much more cumbersome from a developer's perspective.

Re: Show HN: Firefox extension to obfuscate web page text

#75

Post by jfk13 »

mfcc64 wrote: post #56

It doesn't work for arabic text.

Or for Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, Greek, Ethiopic, Thai, Korean, etc., etc. ... basically, for any text that uses characters other than the Latin and Cyrillic character sets that the Flow Circular font covers.

(Simple example: try https://www.unicode.org/standard/WhatIsUnicode-more.html and observe the list of language links on the left.)

Re: Show HN: Firefox extension to obfuscate web page text

#76

Post by Vinnl »

jodrellblank wrote: post #70
breakingcups wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely wingdings are reversible?

I tried googling "black bar font" to find what the extension dev is using without downloading the extension, but gave up when I saw the Google results and realised how unlikely I am to find "font which doesn't need downloading and installing or hosting which renders normal characters as black bars".

As the sibling comment mentioned, it's Flow [1] [2], which has Block, Circular and Rounded variants. Elsewhere people also mentioned the Redacted font as a usable alternative [3] [4]. Both are available on Google Fonts.

[1] https://gitlab.com/vincenttunru/obfuscate/-/blob/2ada3be5059...

[2] https://github.com/HYPD/flow-typeface

[3] https://gitlab.com/vincenttunru/obfuscate/-/issues/2

[4] https://github.com/christiannaths/redacted-font

Re: Show HN: Firefox extension to obfuscate web page text

#77

Post by Vinnl »

mmis1000 wrote: post #71
Vinnl wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I'd like to have that too. Don't know yet how I'd implement it, but logged here and happy to take Merge Requests: https://gitlab.com/vincenttunru/obfuscate/-/issues/3

Probably by - locate the text node containing the selected text - split the text node into 3 segment (the selected one in the middle) - replace the selected segment with a span that has font style on it ? I did something like this before to replace part of the text with a ruby tag. https://codepen.io/mmis1000/pen/gOgKqba?editors=0010 Or probably you can do it the reverse the obfuscate the selected text and make it ac…

Yeah, I was initially thinking block-level elements, but just selected text should be easier.

Re: Show HN: Firefox extension to obfuscate web page text

#78

Post by zhfliz »

Vinnl wrote: post #46
dspillett wrote: post #43

Another option for this is to use a “redacted” font like https://github.com/christiannaths/redacted-font I can't find it ATM, but I used to have a bookmarklet that added one of these as a css style on all elements (or removed its edits when run a second time, to revert the page). Shouldn't be too hard to write if I decide I want it again and still can't find the source of the one used back then. It didn't watch for a…

Yeah, a bookmarklet should work pretty well too, although indeed needs the font installed locally or requests going out to another sever. The advantage of the extension in that sense is that it includes the font locally and has a keyboard shortcut. Someone else also mentioned that font, so I logged that here: https://gitlab.com/vincenttunru/obfuscate/-/issues/2

font injection using a remote server is also problematic due to CSP

Re: Show HN: Firefox extension to obfuscate web page text

#79

Post by arthurcolle »

Vinnl wrote: post #38
axelthegerman wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not too late to change no? Let's have some fun

Happy to take suggestions!

Obfuscate is fine. Redact is more to the point though!

edit: Redactify for instant pre-seed angel funding

Re: Show HN: Firefox extension to obfuscate web page text

#80

Post by Vinnl »

dylan604 wrote: post #68
Vinnl wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, a bookmarklet should work pretty well too, although indeed needs the font installed locally or requests going out to another sever. The advantage of the extension in that sense is that it includes the font locally and has a keyboard shortcut. Someone else also mentioned that font, so I logged that here: https://gitlab.com/vincenttunru/obfuscate/-/issues/2

But in the course of prepping screen shots with obfuscated text for use wherever, would the cost of hitting an additional server for a font be that bad? It's not like the whole webpage is not allowed to render because of this post-render user initiated change to specifically mess with the text.

Not that bad, depending on your value system, but I like not sending more requests to e.g. Google's servers. But of course, definitely use the bookmarklet if you prefer that over my extension!
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