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I found it more trustworthy to code my own extensions via ChatGPT. These are the last 2 ones. I pretty much dont care if people use them, as the mostly fulfill

by franze 2y ago

I found it more trustworthy to code my own extensions via ChatGPT. These are the last 2 ones. I pretty much dont care if people use them, as the mostly fulfill my own usecases. https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/comparative-chatgpt-searc/npdkpocndhogcfnmfgnhojcipnnbogfb https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/comparative-chatgpt... https://thisismy.franzai.com/ https://thisismy.franzai.com/ The cost of (small) software is fast approaching 0, and it can be faster now to code your own solution, instead of looking for one that nearly mostly fulfills your usecases.

richrichardsson 2y ago
> I found it more trustworthy to code my own extensions I used to have a ton of little single use extensions that I barely ever used but thought at the time of installation, ”that could be useful one day". Then I started noticing I was liking really random shit on Facebook. That immediately ceased when I uninstalled all but Bitwarden, Leechblock and uBlock Origin. I will never install another random 3rd party extension again
- collinvandyck76 2y ago
  Which of your single use extensions was causing you to like things on Facebook?
  - aragonite 2y ago
    Not the GP, but just last week Google automatically removed a single use extension (https://readermode.io https://readermode.io) from my browser after flagging it as malware (as I recall the extension updated itself a day before the removal). The extension has also been taken down from the Chrome web store (https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/reader-mode/llimhhconnjiflfimocjggfjdlmlhblm https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/reader-mode/llimhhc...) though Google hasn't provided any details about what it was doing that led to the removal.
    - nomilk 2y ago
      I think the asymmetry in payoffs explains this, since a bad actor who baits and switches their extension could do massive damage to users. So google try to catch this behaviour and inevitably have some false positives (extensions labelled malware that actually aren't). The cost of a false positive is annoyance. The cost of real malware getting through could be your bank balance.
      - hackinthebochs 2y ago
        Automatic extension updates is a stupid practice. The attack surface for a legit extension is minimal, while being huge for a malware update. I'm against almost all automatic software updates in general, but browser extensions take the cake for having an obscene cost/benefit ratio. Chrome won't even let you turn it off. Personally I extract and load all my extensions in developer mode.
        jjeaff 2y ago
        the alternative is leaving software eternally insecure as people will not update them. and of those that will, 99.99% (probably not an exaggeration) will not have the interest, time, or ability to review code changes before updating.
        hackinthebochs 2y ago
        There are some core technologies that should be updated automatically as the cost/benefit is well in favor of updates (by default, but with an option to turn it off). But the fact that we're at the point of all software updating automatically with zero acknowledgement that there is even a cost associated with it is a huge problem. Ostensibly a security practice but now serves as a means for software distributors to extract the maximum value from their users. The pendulum is well overdue for a swing back towards the middle.
    - amelius 2y ago
      I heard (on HN) that often an extension changes owners just before turning bad. Curious if that was the case here.
  - cynicalsecurity 2y ago
    Tons of them. Custom download page, to avoid seeing the old ugly Chrome'a download shelf at the bottom of the screen.
    - JadeNB 2y ago
      > Tons of them. Custom download page, to avoid seeing the old ugly Chrome'a download shelf at the bottom of the screen. Just to make sure—you seem to be replying to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42493152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42493152, which currently says: > Which of your single use extensions was causing you to like things on Facebook? Are you saying tons of your single-use extensions caused this Facebook liking, and a custom download page was one of them? Or was this meant to be a response to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42492881 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42492881? (Or maybe something's wrong with parent links today. For me, on the main page, they are now turning into anchored links that don't seem to go where intended, which wasn't happening yesterday.)
  - richrichardsson 2y ago
    I can't answer that question I'm afraid. I disabled somewhere in the region of 5-10 extensions and it would have required more effort than I cared to exert to figure out which was the culprit. This means that I can't categorically state an extension was to blame, but there was a strong correlation between my removing them and the spurious likes stopping.
- antihero 2y ago
  I remember this happening when an extension got sold and then stole my Instagram cookies. Absolutely tonnes of likes of weird shit.
polotics 2y ago
Haha exactly! Except I didnt bother to publish mine on chromewebstore, it's just on gitlab: https://gitlab.com/natural_aliens/geminiwrap_plugin https://gitlab.com/natural_aliens/geminiwrap_plugin ...it makes Gemini-Chat voice dictation a bit more useful. My other one, the remove-youtube-shorts, is almost an one-liner, so I didnt even publish it it's too trivial I think. Everyone just make your own!
- franze 2y ago
  Yeah, creating the marketing screenshots and filling out the publishing form takes longer nowadays then coding the actual extension.
  - polotics 2y ago
    Also if anyone wants to uses an extension I would much rather they make the minuscule effort to create a local folder, put the files in there, and load the extension's folder with the chrome extension mgr. Maybe even they can peek at the source code... I really don't see why I'd have to push my name, address, email etc on some google storefront and submit myself to spam reviews at the big "google-internet" party in the cloud.
  - oefrha 2y ago
    I was updating my Chrome Web Store extensions to MV3 the other day. Had to fill a fair bit of new stuff. Then one dead simple extension I haven’t touched in a decade got its update rejected due to “description provided is insufficient to understand the functionality of the item”, even though anyone who bothered to seek it out absolutely would have no trouble understanding what it does (according to analytics on the dashboard, there are a grand total of ~20 active users and a couple hundred throughout its lifetime), never mind what those lay reviewers think. The review process is really dumb.
- dsauerbrun 2y ago
  I'm gonna need the remove youtube shorts one
  - 2y ago
amelius 2y ago
I'm too scared to download extensions, so I use bookmarklets (on Firefox). But I like your suggestion of using ChatGPT to write extensions.
- RustySpottedCat 2y ago
  Tampermonkey scripts with chatgpt is even faster. Adding a functionality to a website just by pasting the site's html in chatgpt and in 2min I get what I need.
  - DaSHacka 2y ago
    Making a simple tool for a site or two is the perfect use case for a userscript manager like TamperMonkey/ViolentMonkey (FOSS alternative), I think making your own extension is somewhat overkill Easier to share with others, too
croes 2y ago
Your cost but not the cost.
adamredwoods 2y ago
Interesting that extensions are not seen as trustworthy. I installed a third-party one for work, and it kept opening up the developers website which was blocked by our firewall. Why try to do a web action the user didn't request? It devolves trust.

by franze 2y ago

richrichardsson 2y ago

> I found it more trustworthy to code my own extensions I used to have a ton of little single use extensions that I barely ever used but thought at the time of installation, ”that could be useful one day". Then I started noticing I was liking really random shit on Facebook. That immediately ceased when I uninstalled all but Bitwarden, Leechblock and uBlock Origin. I will never install another random 3rd party extension again

collinvandyck76 2y ago
Which of your single use extensions was causing you to like things on Facebook?
- aragonite 2y ago
  Not the GP, but just last week Google automatically removed a single use extension (https://readermode.io https://readermode.io) from my browser after flagging it as malware (as I recall the extension updated itself a day before the removal). The extension has also been taken down from the Chrome web store (https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/reader-mode/llimhhconnjiflfimocjggfjdlmlhblm https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/reader-mode/llimhhc...) though Google hasn't provided any details about what it was doing that led to the removal.
  - nomilk 2y ago
    I think the asymmetry in payoffs explains this, since a bad actor who baits and switches their extension could do massive damage to users. So google try to catch this behaviour and inevitably have some false positives (extensions labelled malware that actually aren't). The cost of a false positive is annoyance. The cost of real malware getting through could be your bank balance.
    - hackinthebochs 2y ago
      Automatic extension updates is a stupid practice. The attack surface for a legit extension is minimal, while being huge for a malware update. I'm against almost all automatic software updates in general, but browser extensions take the cake for having an obscene cost/benefit ratio. Chrome won't even let you turn it off. Personally I extract and load all my extensions in developer mode.
      - jjeaff 2y ago
        the alternative is leaving software eternally insecure as people will not update them. and of those that will, 99.99% (probably not an exaggeration) will not have the interest, time, or ability to review code changes before updating.
        hackinthebochs 2y ago
        There are some core technologies that should be updated automatically as the cost/benefit is well in favor of updates (by default, but with an option to turn it off). But the fact that we're at the point of all software updating automatically with zero acknowledgement that there is even a cost associated with it is a huge problem. Ostensibly a security practice but now serves as a means for software distributors to extract the maximum value from their users. The pendulum is well overdue for a swing back towards the middle.
  - amelius 2y ago
    I heard (on HN) that often an extension changes owners just before turning bad. Curious if that was the case here.
- cynicalsecurity 2y ago
  Tons of them. Custom download page, to avoid seeing the old ugly Chrome'a download shelf at the bottom of the screen.
  - JadeNB 2y ago
    > Tons of them. Custom download page, to avoid seeing the old ugly Chrome'a download shelf at the bottom of the screen. Just to make sure—you seem to be replying to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42493152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42493152, which currently says: > Which of your single use extensions was causing you to like things on Facebook? Are you saying tons of your single-use extensions caused this Facebook liking, and a custom download page was one of them? Or was this meant to be a response to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42492881 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42492881? (Or maybe something's wrong with parent links today. For me, on the main page, they are now turning into anchored links that don't seem to go where intended, which wasn't happening yesterday.)
- richrichardsson 2y ago
  I can't answer that question I'm afraid. I disabled somewhere in the region of 5-10 extensions and it would have required more effort than I cared to exert to figure out which was the culprit. This means that I can't categorically state an extension was to blame, but there was a strong correlation between my removing them and the spurious likes stopping.
antihero 2y ago
I remember this happening when an extension got sold and then stole my Instagram cookies. Absolutely tonnes of likes of weird shit.

polotics 2y ago

Haha exactly! Except I didnt bother to publish mine on chromewebstore, it's just on gitlab: https://gitlab.com/natural_aliens/geminiwrap_plugin https://gitlab.com/natural_aliens/geminiwrap_plugin ...it makes Gemini-Chat voice dictation a bit more useful. My other one, the remove-youtube-shorts, is almost an one-liner, so I didnt even publish it it's too trivial I think. Everyone just make your own!

franze 2y ago
Yeah, creating the marketing screenshots and filling out the publishing form takes longer nowadays then coding the actual extension.
- polotics 2y ago
  Also if anyone wants to uses an extension I would much rather they make the minuscule effort to create a local folder, put the files in there, and load the extension's folder with the chrome extension mgr. Maybe even they can peek at the source code... I really don't see why I'd have to push my name, address, email etc on some google storefront and submit myself to spam reviews at the big "google-internet" party in the cloud.
- oefrha 2y ago
  I was updating my Chrome Web Store extensions to MV3 the other day. Had to fill a fair bit of new stuff. Then one dead simple extension I haven’t touched in a decade got its update rejected due to “description provided is insufficient to understand the functionality of the item”, even though anyone who bothered to seek it out absolutely would have no trouble understanding what it does (according to analytics on the dashboard, there are a grand total of ~20 active users and a couple hundred throughout its lifetime), never mind what those lay reviewers think. The review process is really dumb.
dsauerbrun 2y ago
I'm gonna need the remove youtube shorts one
- 2y ago

amelius 2y ago

I'm too scared to download extensions, so I use bookmarklets (on Firefox). But I like your suggestion of using ChatGPT to write extensions.

RustySpottedCat 2y ago
Tampermonkey scripts with chatgpt is even faster. Adding a functionality to a website just by pasting the site's html in chatgpt and in 2min I get what I need.
- DaSHacka 2y ago
  Making a simple tool for a site or two is the perfect use case for a userscript manager like TamperMonkey/ViolentMonkey (FOSS alternative), I think making your own extension is somewhat overkill Easier to share with others, too

croes 2y ago

Your cost but not the cost.

adamredwoods 2y ago

Interesting that extensions are not seen as trustworthy. I installed a third-party one for work, and it kept opening up the developers website which was blocked by our firewall. Why try to do a web action the user didn't request? It devolves trust.