Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 374 posts

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

#301

Post by chii »

YeBanKo wrote: post #287
chii wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There is a method. Designing plugin and system API in such a way that allows users a granular control over plugins or apps permissions and network activity.

But that doesn't solve the problem of a plugin developer selling out. Under the granular permission control, your existing, granted permissions _should_ be revoked, but there's no way you could know to revoke it.

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

#303

Post by Dylan16807 »

hoseja wrote: post #286
wddkcs wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, someone who has been successfully manipulated would also think they've escaped manipulation. Isn't that the scariest part

At some point a reality check should be possible. Do you find yourself spending money on advertised-things?

Is it even possible to not spend money on advertised things?

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

#304

Post by Cthulhu_ »

tommica wrote: post #289
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...

Man, being offered $11k for an extension would be hard to say no to... With that a down payment for a house is a much smaller problem. It's always a good idea to consider where the line is for ones own ethics.

In a sense, poverty encourages corruption / corruptability; it ties in with the saying that everyone's for sale at the right price.

I have a website, I'm sure it's worth money to someone. If someone were to offer me $1000? Piss off, i've paid more than that in hosting costs in the 15 odd years I've run it. 10K? Sounds compelling, I'll have to think about it. $1M? Fuck all of my online friends, I'm taking the money and cutting contact.

It would be shit and I'd probably regret it, but it's a lot of money. But this kind of corruption is everywhere, and worst of all, it's permeated in politics. But subtly, in the form of campaign contributions, lavish parties and vacations, connections (i.e. lavish positions in company boards during or after a tenure in politics), never in the form of wads of cash passing hands.

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

#305

Post by ohgodplsno »

onli wrote: post #157
ehsankia wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

8 major versions, that is surely less than 5% of the Android population. I'm sure the security flaws in those non-updated phones is far more serious than the lack of microphone indicator.

According to https://source.android.com/docs/core/permissions/privacy-ind... , the microphone indicator is only in there since Android 12. Android 12 and 13 cover only 50% of Android phones, according to https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/android/m... . There were some "access to the microphone is restricted for background apps" changes earlier, reported for Android 9. But I wouldn't rely on them, and…

For context, this is the worldwide stats that Google reports:

https://imgur.com/a/mqBE8wM

30% on Android 13 is absolutely not believable, both from personal experiences and data collected.

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

#306

Post by cal85 »

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 believe in capitalism. I am 100% in favour of making money by offering something people are willing to pay for.

Some extensions are monetizable by honestly asking users to pay for access. Mine just isn’t. It’s only as popular as it is because it’s free and open source and promises total privacy.

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

#307

Post by YeBanKo »

chii wrote: post #301
YeBanKo wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a method. Designing plugin and system API in such a way that allows users a granular control over plugins or apps permissions and network activity.

But that doesn't solve the problem of a plugin developer selling out. Under the granular permission control, your existing, granted permissions _should_ be revoked, but there's no way you could know to revoke it.

Something like a plugin is a fairly well defined thing and ideally should not need a lot of permissions. E.g. an ad blocker has a simple flow: occasionally update filters from a number of specified endpoints and then match and block web pages’ request urls against downloaded lists. Between update it should have zero web traffic and filter updates are expected to be from known whitelisted sources and asymmetrical in size: very few bytes sends and a lot received. If all of a sudden after an update your plugin wants to send a bunch of data to a new URL you know immediately something is fishy. With respect to granularity, in this case the plugin might not even need to know the entire URL but just the host/domain name - this makes it less attractive to adtech.

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

#308

Post by Dylan16807 »

q87b wrote: post #288
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?

Why would money be the only value, that is a really sad view on life. The developer gets joy and gratitude, they can live a happy life. Why bring money into it. Money does not make happy.

> Why would money be the only value, that is a really sad view on life.

Good thing nobody said that.

> The developer gets joy and gratitude,

Your average free software doesn't get very much joy and gratitude back from users either.

> they can live a happy life. Why bring money into it. Money does not make happy.

If the implication was too subtle, the idea is that when you spend a lot of time making something valuable, it should go towards obtaining food and shelter and the other benefits of a living wage.

And those things do make happy.

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

#309

Post by Dylan16807 »

jefftk wrote: post #138
wintermutestwin wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They would gladly click on a "sell my data" over a "pay money" button any day of the week. You don't know that because no one is given a clear choice like you present (and even saying "data" is opaque to joe average user). And this is what regulations like EU's and CA's should be enforcing. Imagine if the choice was: We have this data about you (a comprehensive list of all the fruits of our creepy stalking: a,b,c,d,…

> this is what regulations like EU's and CA's should be enforcing. Imagine if the choice was: We have this data about you (a comprehensive list of all the fruits of our creepy stalking: a,b,c,d, etc...), if you let us violate your privacy in a myriad of ways, we will let you have this little trinket for free. Otherwise, it will cost you x. How many people would select privacy violation? Unfortunately under the GDPR w…

I'm fine with GDPR-compliant sites not giving that choice.

Especially because I bet so many of those sites would set X to be much higher than the value of the data.

Post reply on HN