261–270 of 347 posts
aliexpress is largely a bait and switch site. most of the prices change during checkout in the most frustrating ways. one u ready to check out, and provide ur payment into, and click to pay... they interrupt this fake checkout with a popover, inform u the price is actually much higher, and dangle a button which is one click to accept the new higher price. this is total scam behaviour and probably illegal in most US s…
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It's insane that browsers just hand over API access to my microphone and/or camera to rando web developers. Yes, I know things like Zoom exist. IMO software like that simply shouldn't be possible on browsers, period. Making the browser into a general purpose system SDK was a mistake--maybe the biggest mistake in personal computing's history.
I do not have the Zoom app in any form installed. I'd much rather use it in the browser. When I close the tab, Zoom is gone. After the COVID era bullshit of Zoom installing a utility that gives root access to anything, I've never installed it. Luckily, all of that came out before I started using Zoom.
1. Not make web browser general-purpose runtimes for arbitrary software.
2. OS builds a general-purposes runtime that's completely sandboxed. So users can run more complex software without needing to worry about cruft being installed on their system.
Unfortunately, browser builders have decided that web browsers are #2.
i'd argue that perhaps the ability to play audio should be permission gated, much like the ability to use webcam/microphone. However, I'd bet that many people will gladly allow aliexpress to play audio as there are probably videos on the site that people want to play and listen to. With that said, its possible that this can be only a use once permission. Even if I want to shop at aliexpress if I know they are doing t…
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And someone would install random apps to save $5 on $100 purchases?
"random apps" and it's the largest eCommerce company on the planet
What, I suddenly need to buy Alibaba crap and I can't wait to get to a laptop browser?
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I cannot ever imagine installing something like AliExpress as an app.
Not sure if they still do, but a couple years ago prices in the app were lower than on the website. And they promoted installing it to save money.
Like a white van with FREE CANDY written on it...
I wish such shenanigans would simply trigger the little speaker icon most browser display on tabs these days. Given that they don't (at least in my experience), I'm assuming "playing silent audio" is a sufficiently common thing for websites to do to have motivated browsers into doing the slightly more complicated thing of actually analyzing audio streams for content... Now I wonder, does this also allow websites to c…
Recently I have been getting a request from chrome for access to local network devices. I can’t figure out which site I’m visiting is doing this, because the request doesn’t specify which tab. I would LOVE a little icon for something like that.
Need to rethink the system that allows for (and encourages) this kind of plausible deniability. From "Oh we need this permission for [non essential feature] and you need to accept it if you want the app at all" -> to giving the user ultimate control over what happens on their personal device. Virtualize what the app can see and use fake data/identifiers/devices if necessary to get it to do what its supposed to. If th…
Also perhaps AI agents are now capable enough to run these apps the way the user would and recognize these dark patterns. Flag those and feed it back to a warning at the point of sale that users can upvote there to signal their disapproval and a threshold score that risks removal of the app from the store. Because bad behaviour continues to make business sense if the rules allow it. Moreover, it penalizes and puts pr…
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I wish the browser would classify the fingerprinting and not load the site and show a security risk warning like it does for http sites. Then Advanced > Accept risk to continue. @FireFoxDudes You need to be addressing fingerprinting
a lot of what is used for fingerprinting is also used legitimately, and a lot of sites fingerprint. so ~every site would be behind a security risk warning. we know from the boy who cried wolf that too many warnings quickly turns into legitimate warnings being ignored
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I would actually love if I could have iOS prompt me to allow certain apps to use the speakers. I hate using an app and suddenly have a video autoplay loudly.
I wish Android had this as well. There are apps where it's difficult-to-impossible to turn all sound off, and I wish I could just tell my phone that this app is just never allowed to use the speakers.
I don't think many people know about it, it's made by Good Lock Labs which is basically a group of Samsung devs making advanced customization apps: https://galaxystore.samsung.com/detail/com.samsung.android.s...
You access the features from the OS volume control once installed, there's a "..." button.
Always wondered if that also works on non-Samsung phones, but it's quite useful to forever mute an app.