Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension • Hacker News Board

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

#741

Post by fsckboy » Thu, May 14, 2020, 1:10 PM UTC

I went to look at what pushbullet does since I'm not familiar with it--in this day and age, "bullet" is a fearsome term so I wanted to make sure that wasn't the cause of google's alarm.

The personal information security concern I had is that it seems that pushbullet shovels all sorts of data from Chrome to the pushbullet server and then routes it to, pushbullet says, my other devices while respecting my privacy. While I don't doubt that pushbullet is an honest broker of my data, it's doing all this outside of google's purview. For somebody to spy on my data, they wouldn't need to break into google's ecosystem, they'd just need to break into pushbullet's.

I'm not disagreeing with all the other comments here about big bad google, I already think they are bigger and badder than everybody else here does.

And I'm not at all sure that what I'm pointing out has anything to do with google's motivation here (I liked the comment that said that this app is a threat to their walled garden), I'm just pointing out my impression to try to be helpful to OP in figuring this out.

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

#742

Post by skrebbel » Thu, May 14, 2020, 1:11 PM UTC

enedil wrote: post #699

skrebbel wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or you might think, "Ah-ha, desktop apps!" But the OS vendor can casually destroy you there. Casually? The amount of effort and goodwill, say, Microsoft would need to spend to prevent me from installing $PROGRAM on my computer is significantly higher than the amount of non-effort a single extension reviewer would need to expend to click "no" arbitrarily because they are having a bad day. How would Microsoft do it?…

Microsoft could add the software to Defender's database of signatures. Or just probably revoke your certificate.

Have they ever done such a thing for legit software (akin to Pushbullet?)

My point is not that they can't do it, my point is that they can't casually do it. It would be Real Work and it would risk major backlash.

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

#743

Post by krallja » Thu, May 14, 2020, 1:12 PM UTC

tornato7 wrote: post #634

core-questions wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stop using their browser, stop using their search. The more people that do this in general, the better. We've given Google entirely too much power to control what people see and read (and it follows, control over what they say and think). They don't have our best interests at heart, they have financial interests at heart, and everything else flows from there. I'm not saying this is evil, but it's certainly not _goo…

What should I use for search? I tried switching to DDG for a month but I kept finding myself manually typing in Google.com to make the more obscure searches.

Well, quit typing google.com, for one. Use DDG’s !g feature. Or !sp, which is like Google results without the Google frontend.

https://duckduckgo.com/bang

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

#744

Post by im3w1l » Thu, May 14, 2020, 1:22 PM UTC

chc wrote: post #486

_jal wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This isn't very actionable advice, though, since there is basically no such thing as a software product that isn't built on somebody else's property. You might think, "Ah-ha, web apps!" But no, Google can still casually destroy you there. Or you might think, "Ah-ha, desktop apps!" But the OS vendor can casually destroy you there.

Here's some actionable advice. Go to your local president / prime minister. Preferably a populist. Tell them how you see the dominance of a few megacorps as a threat to national security. This argument is especially strong if from your point of view they are foreign megacorps. Throw in something about colonialism if it would help your case. Express your wish that they do something.

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

#745

Post by fluffything » Thu, May 14, 2020, 1:36 PM UTC

raister wrote: post #606

jboydyhacker wrote: post #543

I think folks are drastically missing the forest for the trees here. This is just one minor example of the INSANE process that is now the Chrome Approval Process. I've seen extensions go for many months getting random rejections with no reason given. This forces developers to GUESS as to what is wrong. Want to try and develop according to a roadmap or timeline- forget about it. There is no "app store" approval proces…

This year, my resolution was to start reducing my dependency on Google products. I installed Firefox and deleted Chrome. Then I downloaded a file size manager and remove all files I haven't open in past 5 years, deleting from GDrive. THe same with GDocs. All emails larger than 1Mb were checked if they needed to persist. I end up unsubscribing from the 100Gb service from Google, my inbox has 6Gb, I deleted the Picasa…

> I installed Firefox and deleted Chrome

You know that Firefox is Google right? Like, literally, Google is the main company paying Firefox's developers, and if they don't do what Google says, Google can just cut the funding, and they all end up unemployed, right ? Of course, to avoid a monopoly, Google would need to fund a different browser instead, but still, people have families to feed.

If you want to cut dependencies on Google, Firefox is not the answer, and neither is Tor or any other Firefox derived web-browser.

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

#746

Post by nautilus12 » Thu, May 14, 2020, 1:44 PM UTC

im3w1l wrote: post #744

chc wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't very actionable advice, though, since there is basically no such thing as a software product that isn't built on somebody else's property. You might think, "Ah-ha, web apps!" But no, Google can still casually destroy you there. Or you might think, "Ah-ha, desktop apps!" But the OS vendor can casually destroy you there.

Here's some actionable advice. Go to your local president / prime minister. Preferably a populist. Tell them how you see the dominance of a few megacorps as a threat to national security . This argument is especially strong if from your point of view they are foreign megacorps. Throw in something about colonialism if it would help your case. Express your wish that they do something .

What? Are you being sarcastic?

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

#747

Post by Svenskunganka » Thu, May 14, 2020, 1:53 PM UTC

brosirmandude wrote: post #733

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…

>if you have an approved extension with https://*/* permissions and active users, malware authors will offer to buy your extension for a very high price. This is interesting, and I didn't realize this was a thing. Are there any lists of extensions with these permissions, or ways that as an average consumer could easily audit my list of extensions for this?

I'm using Firefox and all I have to do to view permissions for an extension is to go to about:addons and click an extension, and there will be a "Permissions"-tab that lists what permissions this extension requests. It's similar in Google Chrome IIRC. Other than that, both browsers lists the permissions an extension requests when installing the extension, and further when the extension requests new permissions.

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

#748

Post by KIFulgore » Thu, May 14, 2020, 2:04 PM UTC

This is scarily reminiscent of Facebook's App Review process. We submitted 8 identical Apps that, functionally, are just webhooks for Messenger events. All required documentation, justification for the two permissions we needed, screen casts, and test login credentials were submitted for the reviewers.

3 were approved. 5 were rejected - all for different reasons.

Re-submitted the 5 with no changes; 2 more got approved. Two were rejected again. One was rejected with a firm reprimand for making an identical submission (must have hit the same reviewer).

Shuffled some words, re-recorded a couple videos - 2 more approvals, 1 rejection.

Re-submitted the last outlier without changes - Approved.

We are very weary of playing Facebook App Review whack-a-mole.

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

#749

Post by andrewflnr » Thu, May 14, 2020, 2:05 PM UTC

shkkmo wrote: post #729

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #719

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was ready to get behind this line of reasoning, but then I thought about e.g. comment sections. Anyone who has moderated a forum will know that trolls find every possible way to walk right up to the line without technically crossing it. If you say "personal attacks aren't allowed", they'll say "I wasn't attacking him personally, I just suggested that anyone who says [the thing he said] should consider getting evalu…

> If you say "personal attacks aren't allowed", they'll say "but I wasn't attacking him personally, I just suggested that anyone who says [the thing he said] should consider getting evaluated by a doctor for mental retardation." 1) That pretty clearly qualifies as a personal attack 2) There is a significant difference between a forum and a business critical software distribution platform.

Don't fixate on particular examples when someone is clearly trying to talk about a broad trend.

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

#750

Post by mplanchard » Thu, May 14, 2020, 2:07 PM UTC

fluffything wrote: post #745

raister wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This year, my resolution was to start reducing my dependency on Google products. I installed Firefox and deleted Chrome. Then I downloaded a file size manager and remove all files I haven't open in past 5 years, deleting from GDrive. THe same with GDocs. All emails larger than 1Mb were checked if they needed to persist. I end up unsubscribing from the 100Gb service from Google, my inbox has 6Gb, I deleted the Picasa…

> I installed Firefox and deleted Chrome You know that Firefox is Google right? Like, literally, Google is the main company paying Firefox's developers, and if they don't do what Google says, Google can just cut the funding, and they all end up unemployed, right ? Of course, to avoid a monopoly, Google would need to fund a different browser instead, but still, people have families to feed. If you want to cut dependen…

The money that Mozilla makes from Google comes primarily from setting Google as the default search engine in Firefox. You can see lots more details on this here (2016 numbers): https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2016/

I think stating that Google controls Firefox is vastly overstating the degree of influence.