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Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

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Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#241

Post by BLKNSLVR »

ericd wrote: post #23
mfrisbie wrote: post #14

ChatGPT for Google was #1 on HN earlier this year. Check out the GitHub repo now: that person sold the extension. I had a small side project extension, ~25,000 installs & free to use. I got enough inbound interest trying to "help me monetize" that I thought it would be worth cataloguing all the different unsavory avenues: https://mattfrisbie.substack.com/p/the-ugly-business-of-mone...

The most galling offer we saw on the mobile app side was something that would turn on the user's microphone, and listen for ads on tvs around them to track what they'd been exposed to offline. Adtech is such a thoroughly gross field.

Adtech is psychological manipulation. Radicalisation uses the same techniques: Create the perception of a vacuum and then provide the solution to fill it.

One is actively censored and you can go to jail for, the other isn't even on the legislative agenda. There are semi-understandable reasons, but it's far from entirely non-hypocritical.

- Do you trust your constituency to make up their own minds or not?

- Who are you trying to protect?

  - From what?

  - From whom?
And this is without even mentioning online advertising as a (seemingly increasing) vector of scams, frauds, malware and viruses.

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#242

Post by Pxtl »

versteegen wrote: post #234
Pxtl wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Android 4 was peak Android. Most of my favorite Android games are from that era and very few of them run anymore. I wish Google either make a sandboxed emulation layer for those old abandoned games.

Wait... what? As someone who's always tried to target the oldest Android version I can which Google Play will still allow uploading (for a long time, Android 2.3), this is alarming. Why don't they run now? I don't actually play games on Android myself.

No idea of what API they're hitting but basically half of my old humble library won't run anymore - they show a warning about old APIs, show the title screen, then crash to desktop.

Even some old games I paid for are gone from the Play Store too. Like, I paid for Puffle Launch and it's just plain gone from my library.

Edit: ahah, I was looking in the wrong spot! Its still in my "not installed" list, just not in my "family library". Either way, not compatible with any device I own.

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#243

Post by chii »

btown wrote: post #220
imoreno wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're doing a very admirable thing, and this helps dispel the little voiced but commonly held perception that "everybody sells out" when they get big.

uBlock Origin is also an incredible success story here!

and you are essentially trusting the moral integrity of the current maintainer.

why can't there be a method for making sure that such trust cannot be abused? Is this a tractable problem at all?

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#244

Post by nerdponx »

alooPotato wrote: post #207
cal85 wrote: post #94

FWIW, and since a few of you probably use it… I own the JSON Formatter extension [0], which I created and open-sourced 12 years ago and have maintained [1] ever since, with 2 million users today. And I solemnly swear that I will never add any code that sends any data anywhere, nor let it fall into the hands of anyone else who would. I’ve been emailed several tempting cash offers from shady people who presumably want…

This seems so weird to me. You're clearly providing value to the world, and according to my moral view, should be entitled to capturing some of that value without resorting to something shady. I'm the founder of Streak where we directly monetize our extension (as do others like Grammarly). Have you tried directly asking your users for $ given the effort you put in?

I use several Firefox extensions that periodically nag me for money. I appreciate it because otherwise I would forget to donate. But now that I have monthly donations set up for several of them, I wish there was a way to turn it off.

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#245

Post by alooPotato »

sandinmyjoints wrote: post #228
alooPotato wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems so weird to me. You're clearly providing value to the world, and according to my moral view, should be entitled to capturing some of that value without resorting to something shady. I'm the founder of Streak where we directly monetize our extension (as do others like Grammarly). Have you tried directly asking your users for $ given the effort you put in?

Thank you for InboxSDK! Have had a pleasant experience using it.

:)

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#246

Post by LoganDark »

chii wrote: post #240
karpierz wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're saying it's scarier that ad companies can figure out these things without the data because it means that you can't protect yourself by withholding your data.

> you can't protect yourself but what are you protecting yourself from? What's the threat model?

You're protecting yourself from targeted psychological manipulation. It's like the difference between someone spraying a cyber-attack over the entire IPv4 space, or spending a while trying to drill into a specific server. The latter is much scarier and harder to resist, but it's basically what targeted advertising is these days. They supposedly want just to help you find what you want to buy, but they do this by trying to make you want things you wouldn't actually need otherwise.

I like to think I'm immune (the only ad I've ever taken up was years ago for Privacy(.com), and only because I then knew about it later, and could choose to pursue it on my own), but I wouldn't be surprised if at some point before I started being allergic to every type of advertisement imaginable, some ads managed to get my attention for one reason or another. (maybe subliminal messaging's done something before, I dunno.)

I'm not too concerned about it since I know it's been kept to a minimum, so at this point basically everything I've done is something I actually wanted to do, there are no concerns about having been manipulated. But that's just because I've managed to avoid seeing targeted ads almost whatsoever.

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#248

Post by dleeftink »

chii wrote: post #240
karpierz wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're saying it's scarier that ad companies can figure out these things without the data because it means that you can't protect yourself by withholding your data.

> you can't protect yourself but what are you protecting yourself from? What's the threat model?

Among other things, I would say the unknown collation of personal history, interests and spending activity that is often auctioned off to the highest bidder.[1][2] In an even more automated society than today, social scoring becomes the norm, and with it access to services.

With prolific cases as Robodebt and the Toeslagen Affaire, we can only hope these automated scoring systems remain isolated from governmental overreach.[3][4]

[1]: https://themarkup.org/privacy/2023/06/08/from-heavy-purchase...

[2]: https://themarkup.org/privacy/2023/06/23/how-your-attention-...

[3]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robodebt_scheme

[4]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_childcare_benefits_sca...

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#249

Post by Exuma »

cal85 wrote: post #94

FWIW, and since a few of you probably use it… I own the JSON Formatter extension [0], which I created and open-sourced 12 years ago and have maintained [1] ever since, with 2 million users today. And I solemnly swear that I will never add any code that sends any data anywhere, nor let it fall into the hands of anyone else who would. I’ve been emailed several tempting cash offers from shady people who presumably want…

If an extension I used got sold out … would it ask me if the permissions are changing? Or would it straight up sneak them in. Id hope id at least see a popup notice that would raise a red flag

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#250

Post by bufferoverflow »

cal85 wrote: post #94

FWIW, and since a few of you probably use it… I own the JSON Formatter extension [0], which I created and open-sourced 12 years ago and have maintained [1] ever since, with 2 million users today. And I solemnly swear that I will never add any code that sends any data anywhere, nor let it fall into the hands of anyone else who would. I’ve been emailed several tempting cash offers from shady people who presumably want…

When you say "tempting", what's the ballpark of the offers?
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