this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023
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About 8 months ago I got pretty tired of seeing billionaire spam online. I could not bear to read about yet another rich guy who launched themselves (or their $200,000 car) into outer space πŸš€ . I did not care about their expert opinion on the latest meme coin back then. I do not care about their expert opinion on the dangers of AI today.

So... I developed a tiny, free, and open source Firefox browser add-on called "Block the Rich". It is completely local and private. No data is tracked. No data is phoned home.

The concept is pretty simple: whenever I load a web page, the extension quickly analyzes the content and intelligently blurs out any references to the Forbes Top 10 Billionaires. Some former and wannabe billionaires are blurred out of courtesy as well (I'm looking at you Trump and Kanye πŸ™„).

This project is a very early prototype that I built in the span of a few days. I have so many awesome ideas for enhancements but the truth is that the wind got completely knocked out of my sails when I put myself out there on Reddit many moons ago. There was absolutely zero public interest. To this day my wife and I are the only ones using the original prototype.

People of Lemmy, do you think there is a place on the internet for such a project, or is it time that I let it go?

Edit: I am blown away by the support from you all. Thank you! I am so excited to start polishing this baby up!

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Lolz, it is crazy what one needs to do to prevail sanity these days

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I like the idea behind this extension and would love to use it. However, I would really appreciate the ability to tweak the blocklist. Not that I enjoy seeing or hearing about Trump everyday, but I do want to stay in the loop with the ongoing court cases he's getting rammed with. If I never hear or see Elon, Zuck, etc. again then I'd be happy.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's in a bit of a strange position.

It blurs the Images, but doesn't block the article or text?

Maybe for some people it can mean something, tho for me it's a bit of a not interesting feature. Like what is the purpose of bluring the image if I still get spammed with the article?

And this may be the real issue where you didn't get traction. The feature pretty useless for the majority of people.

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[–] Gorgonzola_Gams 5 points 1 year ago

Count me in

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thank you for this, @[email protected]! I added this extension to my Firefox install because I am really sick of the same thing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Create a filter for uBO maybe? I run a number of specialized filters in uBO. A "block the rich filter" would be good. The advantage there is content can be removed from view completely, not just blurred.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

You brilliant, brilliant person.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

i like this idea because when i go to read the news i do not care about what rich people are doing.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Yes, dammit. In fact this is the final nudge I needed to reinstall Firefox after many years. Yours will be one of the first plugins in the install queue. Thank you, good sir.

[–] BadRS 3 points 1 year ago

I think you should be able to block people and companies. I’m tired of hearing about Tesla, people hyping Tesla, people doubting Tesla, bragging, complaining, questioning. I’m just done hearing about it.

[–] pexavc 3 points 1 year ago

If this could be changed to add a UI element to identify self-proclaimed pundits I feel it would be better. I think just blocking people is not fair. But, being more aware of whom may help improve critical thinking.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I love this! I also wouldn't mind to never hear from many of these buttholes again. Though I don't mind hearing from Gates, so maybe would be nice to choose which ones.

[–] freehand8776 3 points 1 year ago

If you could find a way to funnel the blocked content’s address to pi-hole it would just never load which is better imo

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I love the concept!

For me, the button of the extension doesn't work to toggle it on or off, so I can't find a way to view the blurred text without disabling the extension completely. So that would be a bit frustrating - sometimes I might want to read it, as in this post. If it's upgraded with an easy on/off toggle I'll probably start using it. :)

Blurred text also makes me somewhat curious by nature - a feature request would be to keep blurring images, but instead of blurring the text just changing the name of the person into "some asshole" or something like that. So that you get the substance of the headline without having to deal with the people.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

This is fantastic. I have but one request: Allow us to block any word / string we want :)

[–] HRDS_654 2 points 1 year ago

But what if I want to make fun of their L takes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Lots of people say that we shouldn't be ignoring troublesome topics. I disagree.

Exposure and anger won't fix anything. It'll only degrade our quality of Life. It's just like reading about plane crashes won't get us anywhere ( unless it's part of your job)

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