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Launch HN: Tweeks (YC W25) – Browser extension to deshittify the web

tweeks.io

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Re: Launch HN: Tweeks (YC W25) – Browser extension to deshittify the web

#131

Post by eejdoowad »

Cool idea and onboarding experience. I spun up Chrome to demo it, and although its got the rough edges of a prototype, the potential is there.

I created a rule to remove thumbnails and shorts from YouTube, and after a few failed attempts, it succeeded! But there were massive tracts of empty space where the images were before. With polish and an accessible way to find and apply vetted addons so that you don't have to (fail at) making your own, I would consider using it.

My daily driver is Firefox, where I've set up custom uBlock Origin cosmetic rules to personalize YouTube by removing thumbnails, short, comments, images, grayscaling everything except the video, etc. My setup works great for me, but I can't easily share it with other people who would find it useful.

Re: Launch HN: Tweeks (YC W25) – Browser extension to deshittify the web

#132

Post by jmadeano »

brulard wrote: post #125

Am I required to sign up after setting it up? Why that was not requested from the beginning? Quite a dark pattern right there.

Could you share more about the dark pattern? That's definitely not my intent. No sign in is required for installing/managing scripts, sign up is only required to generate scripts (and that's because without it, there's no way to prevent abuse of e.g. spamming requests).

We tried to keep the setup process slim: Step 1 is install, step 2 is pin (I guess technically this could be moved later but in testing, without pinning it, users couldn't find it to do the other steps), step 3 is required to make it functional at all (blame chrome manifest V3). Would your preference be to sign up before that?

Re: Launch HN: Tweeks (YC W25) – Browser extension to deshittify the web

#133

Post by jmadeano »

shevy-java wrote: post #130

Is this a general content block like ublock origin used to be? I think I am not fully understanding the use case yet.

It can handle content block, but that is just a small piece of the pie.

> I think I am not fully understanding the use case yet.

Even after playing with it a long time myself, I am still surprised by the creative use cases people come up with! The biggest pause for many users we've seen so far is "This is awesome, but I don't know what to use it for"

The main post text above has some varied examples. The space of possibilities is somewhere between anything a Tampermonkey script can do and anything a standalone chrome extension can do. We plan to keep developing and sharing useful example scripts and we hope as we get more users, they can share their scripts as well to create a community dynamic that makes it easier to get started.

Re: Launch HN: Tweeks (YC W25) – Browser extension to deshittify the web

#134

Post by mannanj »

jmadeano wrote: post #112
blancotech wrote: post #95

This is a super fun idea. As someone who just launched a chrome extension, I find it cool that with tweeks you are essentially create one but without having to go through the chrome web store. I wonder if there's any risk in you offer shared "tweaks" that goes against some web store policy. Also I find the founder journey interesting. What made you decide to pivot from AI Recruiting to an extension generator? Saw thi…

> As someone who just launched a chrome extension, I find it cool that with tweeks you are essentially create one but without having to go through the chrome web store. I do view this as somewhat of a meta-chrome extension. We've had people who were planning to make a simple, standalone chrome extension just build it using tweeks instead which is super cool to me. And congrats on your launch! Anything you're willing…

I’m curious about using a solution like the one you were offering or helping to figure out how. Would you be willing to chat about it? What’s left to do to get value out of it for me as a tech user wanting to get jobs and noticed?

Re: Launch HN: Tweeks (YC W25) – Browser extension to deshittify the web

#135

Post by jmadeano »

eejdoowad wrote: post #131

Cool idea and onboarding experience. I spun up Chrome to demo it, and although its got the rough edges of a prototype, the potential is there. I created a rule to remove thumbnails and shorts from YouTube, and after a few failed attempts, it succeeded! But there were massive tracts of empty space where the images were before. With polish and an accessible way to find and apply vetted addons so that you don't have to…

> Cool idea and onboarding experience. I spun up Chrome to demo it, and although its got the rough edges of a prototype, the potential is there.

I'd love to hear more about the rough edges. We're working hard to polish everything up! Would you be willing to share the script you generated so that I can take a closer look? And any other suggestions are welcome :)

> an accessible way to find and apply vetted addons so that you don't have to (fail at) making your own

This is on the immediate roadmap. We just shipped V0 of the share/profile and sharing + discoverability are going to play an important role in upcoming launches.

Let's say it perfectly one-shotted your request for youtube: Would you be more likely to generate more scripts yourself or still lean toward vetted and relevant existing tweeks?

Re: Launch HN: Tweeks (YC W25) – Browser extension to deshittify the web

#136

Post by JKCalhoun »

The "share" part is interesting.

I am imagining something slightly different perhaps? In the same way Pi Hole has a kind of global list of (ad) URLs to block, I am looking for an extension where all these edits to deshittify a site are applied for me automatically when I visit a site.

That is, if someone has already stripped out banners, etc. (deshittified a site) and (somehow?) "submitted" the edits, I just want to pull those in when I visit the same site.

I understand 1) one person's deshittifying might go too far 2) there will be multiple ways to deshittify a site depending on who does it, and 3) sites change and a deshittify strategy that worked earlier could break.

I have no good answers for the above issues.

Re: Launch HN: Tweeks (YC W25) – Browser extension to deshittify the web

#137

Post by beefnugs »

ryanmerket wrote: post #81

Man I love this, but this isn't a business. Facebook, Reddit, et al will almost certainly C&D you and eventually sue you for violating their policies. "Facebook does not have a specific policy against Greasemonkey like extensions by name, but it has banned users for creating or using scripts that interfere with Facebook's functionality, which can include those made with Greasemonkey. Such actions are against Facebook…

Yeah this is exactly what we need. But it has to be source only peer to peer distributed with no legal way to figure out what developer to stomp on.

Re: Launch HN: Tweeks (YC W25) – Browser extension to deshittify the web

#138

Post by margalabargala »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #136

The "share" part is interesting. I am imagining something slightly different perhaps? In the same way Pi Hole has a kind of global list of (ad) URLs to block, I am looking for an extension where all these edits to deshittify a site are applied for me automatically when I visit a site. That is, if someone has already stripped out banners, etc. (deshittified a site) and (somehow?) "submitted" the edits, I just want to…

(4) someone else's deshittification code could easily hide malicious payloads.

Re: Launch HN: Tweeks (YC W25) – Browser extension to deshittify the web

#139

Post by jmadeano »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #136

The "share" part is interesting. I am imagining something slightly different perhaps? In the same way Pi Hole has a kind of global list of (ad) URLs to block, I am looking for an extension where all these edits to deshittify a site are applied for me automatically when I visit a site. That is, if someone has already stripped out banners, etc. (deshittified a site) and (somehow?) "submitted" the edits, I just want to…

Great comment, I've thought a lot about similar ideas. We're just getting started with sharing + discoverability and already working on a feature to surface popular modifications for a given page you are visiting.

The hardest part is doing it in a way that is privacy-first and not annoying. Done wrong, it's kind of like injecting unwanted popups, and no one wants that. Not to mention properly handling points 1-4.

We very likely won't get it perfect on the first try, but hopefully with a few iterations of user feedback we can tune into a useful system.

Re: Launch HN: Tweeks (YC W25) – Browser extension to deshittify the web

#140

Post by HeinzStuckeIt »

warkdarrior wrote: post #127
blast wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me the more obvious option is additional features that people pay for, i.e. freemium. But what do I know.

As a user, I'll never pay for software. Adblock for SaaS and pirated downloads for everything else is all I need.

Clearly there’s a tension on this venture-capital-run website between some people using their computer-nerd skills to save money and improve their experience, and other people hustling a business that requires the world to pay them.
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