Chrome only, that’s too bad
Even the website doesn't work in Safari which is commitment of a kind I guess.
Launch HN: Tweeks (YC W25) – Browser extension to deshittify the web
31–40 of 218 posts
Re: Launch HN: Tweeks (YC W25) – Browser extension to deshittify the web
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Making the world (or even the internet) a better place, definitely doesn't even seem to register on the priority scale for YC startups. I personally don't need to spend any time wondering how this plays out.
These folks get $500k to run an experiment. I love that for them, experiments are great, and if someone else will pay for it, also great. YC can afford it based on their capital available for investment. But what they build will have no moat, so it can be copied in the future if traction is found, with a license that prohibits commercial use. My first thought is a directed donation to the EFF for a clone, but there a…
Frankly, this wouldn't be possible without the investment/cloud credits. And that is a shame because I think this is something that should exist in the world (even if I'm not the one building it). We're trying to make the most of the system.
I'm honestly not certain myself how we'll monetize this, but I have had a lot of fun building it and using it myself, and seeing how others use it. As you said, if we continue down this path without success, then worst case, what we built will still exist.
Re: local models, I am a big proponent, but they aren't there yet. This task is non-trivial. Try taking raw HTML from a webpage (minified, bundled, abstracted variable names, no comments, etc.) and using it as a basis to make useful edits. It's tough, and very impressive that any model can actually do it reasonably well. It tentatively looks like we're starting to reach a plateau for general models and open-weight is catching up, but I know the big labs/companies are aggressively capturing massive data and squeezing everything they can out of RL for more task-specific tuning. I hope open-weights can continue to compete!
Re: Launch HN: Tweeks (YC W25) – Browser extension to deshittify the web
#33I would love it if I could process the actual contents of the feed with some rules... for example "Hide tweets about politics or woke/anti-woke culture wars or generally things designed to wind me up including replies to my tweets".
Re: Launch HN: Tweeks (YC W25) – Browser extension to deshittify the web
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
These folks get $500k to run an experiment. I love that for them, experiments are great, and if someone else will pay for it, also great. YC can afford it based on their capital available for investment. But what they build will have no moat, so it can be copied in the future if traction is found, with a license that prohibits commercial use. My first thought is a directed donation to the EFF for a clone, but there a…
Frankly, this wouldn't be possible without the investment/cloud credits. And that is a shame because I think this is something that should exist in the world (even if I'm not the one building it). We're trying to make the most of the system. I'm honestly not certain myself how we'll monetize this, but I have had a lot of fun building it and using it myself, and seeing how others use it. As you said, if we continue do…
I wish you all the best, genuinely. Enjoy the work, the learnings, and experience. Hope to be taught something by what you discover.
Re: Launch HN: Tweeks (YC W25) – Browser extension to deshittify the web
#35What a terribad front page!
Telling me to install an extension without ever telling me what that extension actually does is the most rookie move ever!
Re: Launch HN: Tweeks (YC W25) – Browser extension to deshittify the web
#36[dead]
Re: Launch HN: Tweeks (YC W25) – Browser extension to deshittify the web
#37idk if filtering out low like number x posts is helping to "de-enshittify" the web, logically it would just make harder for actual posts to take off while artificially boosted stuff is untouched ...
I think the space is wide open and depends what you consider enshittified.
For example:
Hate Google AI overviews? Delete them.
Tired of the slop on YouTube Shorts? Block shorts altogether.
Tired of going to a recipe site to find a simple recipe and getting hit with 1000+ trackers, more ads that you can imagine, and having to scroll 75% down the page to actually see the ingredients + recipe? Filter out the junk.
The potential is only limited by your creativity (and our models, but they're hopefully getting better everyday!)
Re: Launch HN: Tweeks (YC W25) – Browser extension to deshittify the web
#38I don't understand why we need VC-backed extensions to filter sites, these tools have existed for a long time under open-source codebases and community-driven blocklists.
I think it's better to use Tampermonkey/Greasemonkey. Rules are deterministic, you have full control, and you don't have to worry about monetization or malicious data collection in the future.
There have been multiple incidents in the past of extensions like these being sold off to sketchy third party companies which then use the popularity to insert malware into folks' machines.
I really recommend against this. The AI spin doesn't add much since most sites have had rules that work for years, they don't change that often. Please don't build up this type of dependence on a company for regular browsing.
Re: Launch HN: Tweeks (YC W25) – Browser extension to deshittify the web
#39Listen, I love customizing the web - I use Greasemonkey extensively - but I don't see a path to monetization here. Greasemonkey and Tampermonkey exist, for free. Why would someone pay for this? AI generation is neat, but once a script is creating and working - why wouldn't a user just hop over to Claude and remake the script? Besides burning tokens - these free alternatives exist. An API price hike could make it fall apart even more.
Power users already know about customizing the Web with greasemonkey and those who don't really don't know why they would want this. It's trying to be all things to all people - it's an everything extension. You need to make this work BETTER than the free tools. And this is before even thinking about the legal grey area of modifying websites and then sharing modifications to those websites.
Re: Launch HN: Tweeks (YC W25) – Browser extension to deshittify the web
#40I let GPT build a quick extension just a few weeks ago. It destroys instagram, linkedin and removes shorts from youtube. It's super easy, mostly just injects css into certain sites. Works great! I prefer it over trusting a third party with everything I do, those extensions have a scary amount of access and I never know who runs them.