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Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

blog.pushbullet.com

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Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#681

Post by pvg »

kevingadd wrote: post #655
pvg wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, what were the problems you ran into with native messaging?

So native messaging is fundamentally about opening a named pipe to a child process managed by the browser. I found that the pipe would silently break or time out. In the former scenario, the app was running but could no longer exchange native messages with the browser or extensions - chrome was just ignoring the pipe traffic. In practice I was able to use native messaging to spawn the executable but to actually talk…

I initially assumed I was doing something wrong

We should probably have a weekly HN column with that title.

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#682

Post by icer2312 »

calmchaos wrote: post #187

Those rejection emails are most likely sent by an AI. If you reply back and ask them to specify exactly what is wrong, you'll get the same generic email back. Ask again, and they'll send the same generic response without any details or comments written by a human. They simply can't specify the problem at all. That's how you know you are talking with an AI, not a human. The correct way to respond to those rejection em…

I got a few of those rejection emails recently, and replied asking for further clarification. The replies were the exact same rejection email, but with bolded or highlighted sections. Addressing those sections got my extension into the Web Store (or at least to a new rejection email https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/8j5qim/pro...), so I think there is a human sending those replies, albeit with instructions not to send anything other than the rejection.

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#683

Post by unnouinceput »

wtetzner wrote: post #552
unnouinceput wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After 2nd to 3rd rejection if it will require a human to intervene Google will have to hire half the earthlings to deal with crappy spammers that will simply spam google store with their extensions. The answer is not human interaction, the answer is automation tool to give more details as what was detected and didn't pass.

The answer is probably to stop using Chrome.

I use firefox, stopped using chrome last year. But my comment was about general usability. Chrome or something else, whoever is number 1 will get corrupted by power. It's human condition

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#684

Post by onefuncman »

geofft wrote: post #403

Uh, yikes: > As I looked at the permissions and what our extension actually needs to operate, I noticed a great opportunity to reduce our permissions requests. We do not need to request access to data on https://*/* and http://*/* . Instead, we can simply request data access for https://*.pushbullet.com/* , http://*.pushbullet.com/* , and http://localhost/* . This is a huge reduction in the private data our extension…

Oh. TIL why I was getting all those unsolicited offers.

I took my extension down instead, as I didn't have time to figure out how I had painted a target on my back.

I only published my extension as a fork of an open source project that started injecting malware, presumably from a similar offer...

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#685

Post by account42 »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #575
lidHanteyk wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this means that software shouldn't be distributed as products, but as code. Maybe people should be free to run code of their choice on their computers.

I am not helping my parents compile Gentoo Linux.

Not that they should, but the only ability that is required for installing Gentoo is to read and follow instructions.

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#686

Post by metaphor »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #667
ISL wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Law enforcement also has to tell people how they were caught, perhaps not the entire story, but at least most of it. That, too, is a good thing.

Yes, to a degree. But for instance, tax authorities don't have to reveal the algorithm they use to determine who gets audited.

Being audited isn't an explicit accusation that you've violated anything either; at best, it's an implicit suspicion to which the tax authority is fully entitled to probe and we as taxpayers are given reasonable opportunity to corroborate claims.

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#687

Post by eastendguy »

geofft wrote: post #494
JaggedJax wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you're completely ignoring the point that even without the all http(s) permission they will still be kicked off the store, so that has nothing do do with the issue at hand. If localhost is the issue, Google could literally respond exactly the way you did and the problem is gone, "why do you need http://localhost/?" This isn't about permissions at all. This is about communication and whether it's worth putting eff…

That's the thing I'm sympathetic to - having fixed the bug , it's frustrating that it's not clear what the next steps are. But given that they had the bug, Chrome was absolutely in the right to deny them the first time. And while I don't like Chrome's position that they're too busy to explain to everyone what they're doing wrong, if extensions that go "oh hey, we don't actually need access to literally every website,…

I think most commercial extension authors would be happy to pay 99US$/year to get real support when they need it. Just like in the iOS app store.

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#688

Post by maehwasu »

_jal wrote: post #474
seanwilson wrote: post #84

For people focusing their comments on this particular extension + the permissions it asks for, please take a quick look at the numerous recent posts in the official forum for Chrome extension developers to see it's not an isolated issue: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!forum/chrom... It's a systematic issue that isn't specific to anything Pushbullet is doing and it's been like this before the pandemi…

The rule still applies: if you build your business on someone else's property, don't act surprised when they they casually destroy you. It has happened again and again and again. Building for FB or Google is you making yourself their serf, and you will be allowed to exist at their whim.

I’m torn here.

1. I agree as to the need to get off the Google lands.

2. Being able to create business relationships to build on other people’s property and work without fear of their yanking the rug out is an incredibly important part of a working society.

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#689

Post by CathedralBorrow »

creato wrote: post #664
sam_goody wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we have a ten-person team, we'll get back to you within 5 years? It is TOTALLY not OK to have a ten person team (and I have no way to know if they even have that). Considering the fact that the browser platform is now a real service required by billions of people, they should be responsible to have enough staff to handle extensions properly. Aside from the amount of money the Chrome extensions make them, the amount…

> Considering the fact that the browser platform is now a real service required by billions of people, they should be responsible to have enough staff to handle extensions properly. Extentions don't have to exist at all. At least for a very long time, there were no extensions for Chrome on Android (not sure about now but that may still be the case). I suspect google would love to just deprecate all extensions entirel…

> Extentions don't have to exist at all.

This feels like an empty statement. Browsers don't have to exist at all. Computers don't either.

If Chrome dropped all extension support, I would drop Chrome. It's a valuable feature for me and millions of users.

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