Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can • Hacker News Board

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#121

Post by pjmlp » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 7:12 AM UTC

jerrac wrote: post #113

Boulth wrote: post #2

It's interesting to observe current landscape of app delivery, previously it was just binaries or sources on developer's site now it's shifting to centralized model in the name of protecting users from malicious actors. I wonder if there is a way to have a cookie (developers don't need to worry about random behavior of your centralized owner) and eat it too (fight malware).

Isn't signing supposed to solve some of that? You sign the binaries you host on your site, and the OS checks to make sure the signature is valid. (Maybe against a non-profit "Let's Sign".) If it's a valid signature, then you know it was signed by someone your OS trusts. Ideally, the OS would not trust signatures from malicious actors. I've never been involved with that kind of thing, so I'm just guessing. Feel free t…

There have been cases where malware authors were able to change package contents while keeping the signature.

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#122

Post by DonHopkins » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 7:24 AM UTC

bdcravens wrote: post #31

lowercaseman wrote: post #29

#DeleteGoogle

Probably far more difficult than #DeleteFacebook

More like #MarkGoogleAsDeleted and #MarkFacebookAsDeleted -- nobody actually ever deletes anything.

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#123

Post by joering2 » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 7:29 AM UTC

CryoLogic wrote: post #7

They somehow have the man power to ban your extension in 2 hours and 30 minutes without an explanation as to why, but than when I get a fake copyright claim on my most popular YouTube video somehow it takes three months, 12 emails and I still don't get the ~$900 lost revenue back.

Hello from the other side! Someone stole our copyrighted audio script from our website and uploaded on their own youtube channel. 4 months later (!!!), about 30 emails back and forth and $1,800 in attorneys fees, we finally gotten it down.

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#124

Post by edoceo » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 7:44 AM UTC

I almost lost a Google account because the Amdroid App I uploaded was I violation of their Terms. I had to work a few emails/calls with Google to demonstrate it wasn't a violation, but it was a very close call.

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#125

Post by snarfybarfy » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 7:51 AM UTC

justinzollars wrote: post #50

Its their sandbox.

but, but, they are NOT evil, are they?

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#126

Post by euske » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 7:54 AM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #96

euske wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, it's off topic, but I just learned about your product and sent a link of the product page (beelinereader.com/individual) to my colleagues - only to find out that my email was filtered as a spam by FortiMail! Apparently, the offending text was that URL. Maybe it's somehow related? Was this product site previously infested by malware or something?

Wow, thanks for letting me know. We have never had any malware, though our inline install of Chrome/Firefox extensions has been flagged by Avast at times (despite our attempts to get whitelisted). Neither our website nor our tools have ever done anything even vaguely shady — we don't gather user-level browsing data or anything else like that, so it's a big bummer when we get flagged like this. Do you know if there's…

> Do you know if there's a way that your company can report this as an inappropriate block to FortiMail?

Our corporate email is outsourced to another company, where they apparently use FortiMail as a packaged solution. So I don't think it's very likely that they'll listen to me - but I'll try anyway. Good luck with the new campaign!

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#127

Post by Promarged » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 8:01 AM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #23

Same thing happened to me [1], with a slightly different rationale for pulling the extension. This happened despite tens of thousands of users, years of good reviews, and an extension so useful that Google's own accessibility team demos it at conferences. I was only able to get the situation sorted because I know people who work at Google on the Chrome team. Even with all this, it took weeks to get the previous versi…

> I was only able to get the situation sorted because I know people who work at Google on the Chrome team.

Hehe, one thing all successfully resolved issues have in common - a friend inside of Google. Maybe that's by design... Google employees are not friends with bad guys!

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#128

Post by londons_explore » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 8:25 AM UTC

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #115

chongli wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called Google Takeout[1]. Use it. Download all of your data. Back it up in a place you trust. [1] http://takeout.google.com

Takeout is great, but it has one major flaw. There is no way to download only data that has changed after a specified date, i.e no incremental backups.

There is also no "Take in". Your data might be all in that file, but without a lot of effort, you aren't going to be able to get it back into a usable form, with Google apps or a competitor.

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#129

Post by pure-awesome » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 8:52 AM UTC

davidmurdoch wrote: post #100

Back when Facebook didn't support linked hashtags I made an extension that removed them from posts on facebook.com (they just annoyed me). It still worked perfectly even after Facebook added native support. It was active for many years with great reviews and a few hundred users. Google pulled it early this year because Facebook asked them to... They claimed it violated copyright. There was no option to appeal. Not tr…

Nice. If I had known about this extension I might have used it.

When people started hashtagging on FB, I thought it was the stupidest thing. Then, when FB made it a feature, I just had to shrug and go "I guess the hashtaggers are the ones in the right, now..."

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#130

Post by singularity2001 » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 9:14 AM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #77

nixpulvis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't that an extension was removed. There will always be erroneous attempts at making things safer for users when playing the game of content moderator. The problem is that Google is impossible to talk to, and makes no effort to help when things go wrong. As a current user of gmail this worries me.

This petrifies me. Google provides an incredibly easy way for me to capture all data that I care about. Getting photos and videos of my kids growing up and keeping them for years is trivial with Google. And in one little error it can all disappear with no recourse. I continue to struggle today to find a silver bullet solution for someone like me who just wants to hurl money somewhere and say, "use this money to guara…

> find a silver bullet solution

switch to apple