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For your next side project, make a browser extension

geoffreylitt.com

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Re: For your next side project, make a browser extension

#211

Post by vxNsr »

AlbertCory wrote: post #12

This is a plug for an extension I didn't write, and have no stake in: https://free.law/recap it's a browser extension that defeats the Pacer monopoly on (many) legal filings. If you do have Pacer and download something, it automatically uploads it to a free server. Thus, it becomes free to everyone else. I think some Big Law firms must use it, because a surprisingly large number of docs are available free. Legalities…

I was just talking to a lawyer about pacer and he told me about recap this past Friday. It’s legal bec court documents are public record. Pacer is officially there just to pay for server and development costs if someone else wants to front that the US gov doesn’t care. That’s also why the first 1000or so docs are free, if you don’t cost them much they’re not gonna charge you. It’s when you start becoming a larger cost center that they need to recoup some of that. And most legal firms can obviously afford to pay.

Re: For your next side project, make a browser extension

#212

Post by twostorytower »

gnicholas wrote: post #199
twostorytower wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s actually a little worse than that. You download an app that has an extension bundled. Some apps are just shells for their extension. Others have extensions bundled for additional functionality. PayPal bundles Honey in their main app so that anybody who has PayPal already downloaded can just enable Honey in their Safari browser. But it doesn’t do anything unless it’s enabled.

Good point. In the case of Honey, I actually wouldn't want it to be enabled just because I downloaded the PayPal app. Most people probably aren't aware it's even there. But in the case of the shell apps, it totally makes sense to activate the extension automatically upon installation since that was the whole point of downloading the app/extension.

I agree. I think there really should be a separate extension store.

Re: For your next side project, make a browser extension

#213

Post by bombolo »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #150
techdragon wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the gap is a mile wide. If you can see the current page url, you can see the next page URL and thus one page at a time you have the users browsing “history” from the moment they installed the extension, if you can run arbitrary JavaScript then you can check the back URL, you could potentially add some scope related restrictions to what injected JavaScript can do based on the permissions of the injectin…

The only actual solution to this problem is some kind of human review. I wouldn't be against an "App Store" model provided users could go around it if they chose. I think Mozilla does something like this with certain "featured" extensions?

Opera browser used to have human reviewers for extensions. They were even commenting on code quality and rejecting until their fixes were not implemented.

I don't know if they still do it now or even if the browser is still developed.

Re: For your next side project, make a browser extension

#214

Post by gnicholas »

twostorytower wrote: post #212
gnicholas wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. In the case of Honey, I actually wouldn't want it to be enabled just because I downloaded the PayPal app. Most people probably aren't aware it's even there. But in the case of the shell apps, it totally makes sense to activate the extension automatically upon installation since that was the whole point of downloading the app/extension.

I agree. I think there really should be a separate extension store.

That would also help raise awareness for the fact that there are extensions in the first place. I've talked with many tech-savvy people who had no idea these even existed. It's like Apple wanted to make it possible to do extensions, but not remotely easy. And since they realized that this hassle would generate blowback if the general public went through the activation experience, they decided to keep it under wraps. That way, the only people who learned about extensions in the first place were people who didn't mind digging around a bit. These people would be less likely to be upset/confused by the labyrinthine install process.

Re: For your next side project, make a browser extension

#215

Post by forgotusername6 »

cookingrobot wrote: post #80

Are browser extensions safe? My understanding is they generally get access to everything you browse, and are too big a security risk for a work machine. Is it as bad as I think?

It is fairly trivial to audit the code to see what the extension is actually doing.

Re: For your next side project, make a browser extension

#218

Post by Hackbraten »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #175
qwertox wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was my experience as well and the reason I saw myself forced to use the web store. I think there was a time where it was not required, where side loading was ok, but then they changed it and I saw no other way to do it. IIRC there was an alternative way for enterprise users, but I never understood it. That was around 5-7 years ago and I haven't checked if there was a new alternative, easier way to do it nowadays…

Chrome allows permanent side loading, and without signing, if one enables dev mode from extensions page. Firefox requires uploading to Mozilla for signing to side load permanently or host with them. Though you can self host once signed. IME Firefox add-ons are approved almost instantly if your addon is not minified or downloading code to execute outside the package. Chrome approvals are always days.

> Firefox requires uploading to Mozilla for signing to side load permanently

Are you sure?

I’ve been sideloading extensions, signed or not, into /usr/lib/firefox/browser/extensions/ and they’ve been working fine.

Re: For your next side project, make a browser extension

#219

Post by Hackbraten »

fswd wrote: post #23

Any suggestions for a good stack to develop extensions? I'm coming from nodejs/react, and would like to stay close to that. Is there an up-to-date stack I can clone, copy, and deploy with something like 'yarn run build' and start hacking?

I’m using vanilla JS (see [0] for an example).

[0]: https://github.com/claui/tante-jacky/blob/9c6922dd5184fb3674...

Re: For your next side project, make a browser extension

#220

Post by wildpeaks »

Last time I was making one (for myself, not to publish), my main issue was that browsers made it nearly unusable to have a private local extension because you only had two choices:

- either upload it on their website and go through approval everytime

- either lower security to run in developer mode, and have an alert warning you about it every X minutes, ruining your focus

VSCode on the other hand has no issue running local extensions at the same time as extensions from the marketplace.

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