Maker of Chrome extension with 300,000+ users tells of constant pressure to sell out
"Actors who are asking me to add some tracking code are mostly interested in reselling users' data," Anashkin said. "Actors who want to purchase it outright will stuff it with malware depending on their level of greed: hijacking affiliate links, tampering with search results, showing popups with shady websites, etc."
Anashkin's experience appears to be fairly common. Developers have discussed these solicitations in online forums and several have written blog posts about selling extensions or partnership offers.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/11/chrome_extension_developer_pressure/Open linkView original on lemmy.name805
Comments51
It happened to the original uBlock and then the developer made uBlock Origin.
Absolute legend
And we are so thankful for that. Ublock origin is epic.
Been spending the past little while reading the documented offers he gets.
I feel sick to my stomach.
Was not expecting that many
Props to Oleg/hoverzoom for maintaining and updating this list for all to read. It's my first time seeing any document of this kind really. Quiet chilling
I prefer to feel proud that there are still people who don't fall for that and have values. And there always will be.
Jesus… it is time to seriously re-evaluate and pare back the extensions I use. Ugh.
Wow that is genuinely chilling
What a depressing read, thank you!
You are welcome ☺️.
1/25/2021
So wtf does this mean? Is Dark Reader hammered as of 2021?
The extension in question is Hover Zoom+ for those who don't want to click the link
What does it do? Like a magnifier for your mouse?
If I remember correctly it zooms in images that you point at (quicker than opening the image in a new tab). I've been using Imagus for that.
Ahh. Is imagus next? But this Dev seem legit. Might use his to be safe now.
I get these offers almost daily for my Chrome extension, and have done for years. I couldn't do it to the users, but they wouldn't be making the offers if some people weren't accepting.
Exactly. I don’t get them as often as daily, but I have gotten a bunch. I just mark them as spam and move on with my life. Not only would I never sell my hard work to a shady company, but I’d also never willfully harm my user base. It’s like scam calls I suppose. To me, routine scam calls are blatantly obvious, but since I still get them so frequently, they must be fooling some people.
My coworker had a liver transplant. The few months leading up to it, he was really really sketchy. He said a few things that came off like he was ready to sell company secrets to find some random backalley liver.
Desperate life issues can lead to desperate decisions, like selling out. And it's hard to even be mad in those circumstances.
I wouldn't blame them for selling out for less as much as it would suck for the people who use the product. If I had a family to take care of I would definitely sell out for a big check. Gotta take care of my own first.
It sounds fair, but only if we are talking about really important things under "take care of my family" and not another PS5 or a vacation.
They need to name and shame the people reaching out. They keep reacting them.
this is how you burn potential for future relationships
Seems like a good deal if it proactively convinces bad actors to stop from reaching out
In other words, "retirement fund" or wasn't offered enough.
The alternate universe where Anashkin doesn't fall for the dark side
Anashkin skhiwhalker
Shkinwalker
The day he sells out, I'm gonna be like, "you were the chosen one, Anashkin"
"You were to bring visibility to small text, not leave it under ad ID-targeted popups!"
The trick is to sell it at a high price and immediately fork. Get paid and fuck off.
Then do it again and again and again. Infinite money glitch. Don't worry about getting sued after a bit you'll be rich enough to be immune from prosecution.
The sell contract would probably include a full license transfer of all copyright, and probably a non-compete clause.
How'd uBlock (Origin) get around that?
It was a main branch overtake. Not a sellout. He was kicked put of his project.
Not all transfers include "non competes"
The extension in question btw is Zoom+ for people that don’t want to click
"Hover Zoom+"
Wow, this actually take me back to the early days of imgur, when the site wasnt a mess
That's why I'm avoiding any extension I know I really don't need.
I've already burned myself once, when Nano Defender sold out and turned into a cookie-stealing malware. By the time it was one of few adblockers that were not being blocked by adblock killers. They've pushed a malware update through the Chrome web store, and started exploiting stolen cookies immediately.
It was a difficult day, where I had to explain to few of my exes that someone hacked their Instagram account due to an ad-blocker I've set up for them when we were dating few years ago.
Yes, criminal activity is everywhere, problem is we haven't yet forbid selling of users data.
And it's very unlikely to happen, since our governments are very interested in spying us / buying our data.
Great suspender, ublock (not origin) and some other extensions that i cannot think of have fallen to buyouts
Not just extensions, sometimes it's entire software companies. Opera Software got bought a few years back.
Damn I'd forgotten all about the great suspender!
And now, please make the mental leap to overly-large Lemmy instances...
…… if you’re using chrome, Google baked these things in anyways sooo……
Damn I'm using that. I guess the article means he hasn't sold out yet though.
Reverse switcheroo... this article boosts downloads because people think he has unique integrity in the field, then he sells for double
Would be fucked up but clever hah
Do anyone knows if in Firefox is the same situation, or if they take some actions when a extension changes hands?
Looks like Firefox add-ons can be transferred with "[n]o interaction with Mozilla representatives":
https://extensionworkshop.com/documentation/publish/add-on-ownership/
You do have to include your source code though if you use any kind of code obfuscation or minimization though:
https://extensionworkshop.com/documentation/publish/source-code-submission/