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Google blocked my Chrome extension so I created a website to host it

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Re: Google blocked my Chrome extension so I created a website to host it

#41

Post by geysersam »

vorpalhex wrote: post #28
xhkkffbf wrote: post #22

Let me just say -- and I'll get voted down for this -- that I think breaching paywalls is generally immoral. While I can imagine some moral reasons, I think most people are doing it even though they can pay. They are taking someone's work and using it without permission while refusing to pay. Of course I may be biased because I make some of my living creating content behind paywalls. If free access and ad support wer…

The issue with paywalls is the bait and switch - you push the whole content for SEO then force users to pay money. Nobody cares if you want to sell the secrets of the universe for $5000/mo. We care about the bait and switch. By setting up this bait and switch, you hurt your own paywall - if the search engine can get a full copy, so can I. Want these extensions to stop working? Stop the bait and switch.

Why is that relevant? They've created their content - if they want to share it with a search engine that's none of your business.

The technology does not allow them to do this without sharing it with you as well. But that is ethically irrelevant.

(Of course, we also deserve a good search engine allowing us to remove paywalled sites and seo spam from our results.)

Re: Google blocked my Chrome extension so I created a website to host it

#42

Post by jayass »

hk__2 wrote: post #39
jayass wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that is correct. The random web service fetches a copy of the cached version of the page. If you're interested I can show you the source code

> If you're interested I can show you the source code This doesn’t really solve the old problem that there’s no proof the source code you show is the one that runs on Cloudflare. Couldn’t that code run locally?

Yes, I believe It's possible to replicate the same behaviour locally. I'll try to do that in the next update

Re: Google blocked my Chrome extension so I created a website to host it

#44

Post by TekMol »

From the description, it sounds like this extension just puts "https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:" in front of the current url?

If so, you can also do this via a simple bookmarklet:

    javascript:location.href='https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:'+location.href;{}
If you don't know what bookmarklets are: Edit any old bookmark and put the above line into the url field. Next time you click it, it will bring you to the Google cache of the current page you are on.

Re: Google blocked my Chrome extension so I created a website to host it

#45

Post by vehemenz »

e44858 wrote: post #38

Looking at the source, it seems like the page is proxied through a CloudFlare worker black box called “cfworker-beatthatwall.jayass.workers.dev”. It would be easier to trust if all the work was done locally.

Exactly. This type of extension should 100% be blocked from the official store. That said, the userscript is working as intended so far.

Re: Google blocked my Chrome extension so I created a website to host it

#46

Post by robertlagrant »

vorpalhex wrote: post #28
xhkkffbf wrote: post #22

Let me just say -- and I'll get voted down for this -- that I think breaching paywalls is generally immoral. While I can imagine some moral reasons, I think most people are doing it even though they can pay. They are taking someone's work and using it without permission while refusing to pay. Of course I may be biased because I make some of my living creating content behind paywalls. If free access and ad support wer…

The issue with paywalls is the bait and switch - you push the whole content for SEO then force users to pay money. Nobody cares if you want to sell the secrets of the universe for $5000/mo. We care about the bait and switch. By setting up this bait and switch, you hurt your own paywall - if the search engine can get a full copy, so can I. Want these extensions to stop working? Stop the bait and switch.

What's the bait and switch involved?

Re: Google blocked my Chrome extension so I created a website to host it

#47

Post by hk__2 »

vorpalhex wrote: post #28
xhkkffbf wrote: post #22

Let me just say -- and I'll get voted down for this -- that I think breaching paywalls is generally immoral. While I can imagine some moral reasons, I think most people are doing it even though they can pay. They are taking someone's work and using it without permission while refusing to pay. Of course I may be biased because I make some of my living creating content behind paywalls. If free access and ad support wer…

The issue with paywalls is the bait and switch - you push the whole content for SEO then force users to pay money. Nobody cares if you want to sell the secrets of the universe for $5000/mo. We care about the bait and switch. By setting up this bait and switch, you hurt your own paywall - if the search engine can get a full copy, so can I. Want these extensions to stop working? Stop the bait and switch.

> By setting up this bait and switch, you hurt your own paywall - if the search engine can get a full copy, so can I.

I don’t get this. They do whatever they want with their content. Editors give free book copies to journalists; that doesn’t gives you the right to have one as well.

Re: Google blocked my Chrome extension so I created a website to host it

#48

Post by vorpalhex »

geysersam wrote: post #41
vorpalhex wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with paywalls is the bait and switch - you push the whole content for SEO then force users to pay money. Nobody cares if you want to sell the secrets of the universe for $5000/mo. We care about the bait and switch. By setting up this bait and switch, you hurt your own paywall - if the search engine can get a full copy, so can I. Want these extensions to stop working? Stop the bait and switch.

Why is that relevant? They've created their content - if they want to share it with a search engine that's none of your business. The technology does not allow them to do this without sharing it with you as well. But that is ethically irrelevant. (Of course, we also deserve a good search engine allowing us to remove paywalled sites and seo spam from our results.)

"FREE VACATIONS! (you have to sit through a timeshare presentation and there are catches"

We widely regard the above as unethical.

Adding content to a search engine literally says "you can come read this content!". That is the purpose of search engines. Even Google penalizes paywall behavior and will downrank them - which forces the paywall people to get more clever.

Sorry but don't abuse search engines and users to sell your content. Buy ads like a big boy.

Re: Google blocked my Chrome extension so I created a website to host it

#49

Post by jayass »

TekMol wrote: post #44

From the description, it sounds like this extension just puts " https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache :" in front of the current url? If so, you can also do this via a simple bookmarklet: javascript:location.href='https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:'+location.href;{} If you don't know what bookmarklets are: Edit any old bookmark and put the above line into the url field. Next time y…

That's not the only thing it does. But it's the starting point. After that ir removes some scripts so the paywall don't show again after you load the page

Re: Google blocked my Chrome extension so I created a website to host it

#50

Post by kube-system »

Installing extensions in developer mode is not a good solution.

It’s not good to train users to do this because this is what malicious extensions do. Also, this will produce popup warnings and/or they can be automatically disabled by the browser.

I don’t even run extensions that I have developed myself in developer mode because it’s a PITA.

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