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Should be added that the malicious part is often done by a third party that takes over an open source project when the original developer doesn't have the time/
by jeroenhd 2y ago
Should be added that the malicious part is often done by a third party that takes over an open source project when the original developer doesn't have the time/energy/money to maintain their open source/free work. Many Chrome extensions end up being sold for thousands or just hundreds of dollars because there's no money in them and the dev isn't all that interested.
Society as a whole could easily avoid this by funding open source/free utilities to the point where malware makers need to spend significant cash to outbid yearly community support, but unfortunately maintaining anything available online for free is a thankless job that barely covers the electricity required to maintain the code.
In this case too, the developers behind the theme seemed to want to monetise their work, which had attained almost 4 million installs, in the past, but found themselves with a rather unwilling customer base. I don't know if they snapped and uploaded something malicious or if they're intentionally making it hard for forks to copy their work, but either way the lesson learned is that if you want to make money you should just abandon your free projects and start something else.
- tobyhinloopen 2y ago> Society as a whole As long as we won't have to pay 2 USD for an extension!
- hombre_fatal 2y agoEvery time piracy or Youtube ads come up, HNers grandstand on how they don't even pay a dime to the content creators making the hundreds of hours of videos they watch. GGs if you want a buck for the VSCode theme you made.
- izzydata 2y agoI fundamentally disagree with making money from ads. I have no problem giving money to people who make things.
- skyyler 2y agoI proudly block ads while giving directly to the people that make the stuff I like. I know I'm in the minority, but I block ads because of memetic hygiene. I don't want to deprive artists but I'm not sitting through adslop for a podcaster's sake.
- Thorrez 2y agoWith Youtube at least, you can buy Youtube premium, so you don't have to sit through Youtube ads without needing an ad blocker (though you'll still have to sit through any ads the Youtuber directly adds into the video itself). Disclosure: I work at Google.
- skyyler 2y agoI use Youtube Premium, plus an ad blocker, plus an extension that removes shorts, plus an extension that skips sponsored segments. Soon, I'm going to need an extension that removes the AI stuff I don't want and didn't ask for. Using youtube in 2025 is exhausting.
- Thorrez 2y agoDoes the ad blocker do anything on Youtube since you have premium? It'll of course do things on other sites, but I'm wondering if it has any impact on Youtube.
- skyyler 2y agoYes. It removes ad elements that Google / Youtube don't consider to be ads, like channel stores and that sort of stuff.
- coffeecantcode 2y agoCare to share these extensions?
- skyyler 2y agoAd block: https://ublockorigin.com/ https://ublockorigin.com/ Skipping sponsored sections: https://sponsor.ajay.app/ https://sponsor.ajay.app/ Remove shorts: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-youtube-shorts/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-youtub... Return dislike: https://www.returnyoutubedislike.com/ https://www.returnyoutubedislike.com/ Forgot to mention returning the dislike in my original comment. At least I can use these extensions and get something resembling the service I want to pay for.
- Der_Einzige 2y agoCopyright abolitionists are more than happy to embrace no one ever making money off of "software" again.