this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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"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.

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[–] [email protected] 232 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It happened to the original uBlock and then the developer made uBlock Origin.

[–] swirle13 31 points 1 year ago

Absolute legend

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[–] [email protected] 179 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Been spending the past little while reading the documented offers he gets.

I feel sick to my stomach.

[–] psyc 39 points 1 year ago

Was not expecting that many

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

I prefer to feel proud that there are still people who don't fall for that and have values. And there always will be.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Jesus… it is time to seriously re-evaluate and pare back the extensions I use. Ugh.

[–] Slowy 12 points 1 year ago

Wow that is genuinely chilling

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What a depressing read, thank you!

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

1/25/2021

We'd love to have redacted sponsor Hover Zoom+ in a similar manner to how we're partnering with Dark Reader. See attached for how that partnership has come to life, but we're honestly super flexible on implementation. We'd essentially love to pay you in exchange for helping us drive users to redacted.

So wtf does this mean? Is Dark Reader hammered as of 2021?

[–] Dougas 114 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The extension in question is Hover Zoom+ for those who don't want to click the link

[–] Dazza 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What does it do? Like a magnifier for your mouse?

[–] kamen 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] LUHG_HANI 5 points 1 year ago

Ahh. Is imagus next? But this Dev seem legit. Might use his to be safe now.

[–] [email protected] 79 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] burkybang 4 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] Potatos_are_not_friends 77 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] RivenRise 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They need to name and shame the people reaching out. They keep reacting them.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

this is how you burn potential for future relationships

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago

Seems like a good deal if it proactively convinces bad actors to stop from reaching out

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

In other words, "retirement fund" or wasn't offered enough.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The alternate universe where Anashkin doesn't fall for the dark side

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The day he sells out, I'm gonna be like, "you were the chosen one, Anashkin"

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

"You were to bring visibility to small text, not leave it under ad ID-targeted popups!"

[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] brianorca 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The sell contract would probably include a full license transfer of all copyright, and probably a non-compete clause.

[–] AlecSadler 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How'd uBlock (Origin) get around that?

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

It was a main branch overtake. Not a sellout. He was kicked put of his project.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Not all transfers include "non competes"

[–] nostalgicgamerz 53 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The extension in question btw is Zoom+ for people that don’t want to click

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Wow, this actually take me back to the early days of imgur, when the site wasnt a mess

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, criminal activity is everywhere, problem is we haven't yet forbid selling of users data.

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

And it's very unlikely to happen, since our governments are very interested in spying us / buying our data.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Great suspender, ublock (not origin) and some other extensions that i cannot think of have fallen to buyouts

[–] kamen 25 points 1 year ago

Not just extensions, sometimes it's entire software companies. Opera Software got bought a few years back.

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

Damn I'd forgotten all about the great suspender!

[–] ArbiterXero 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

…… if you’re using chrome, Google baked these things in anyways sooo……

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

And now, please make the mental leap to overly-large Lemmy instances...

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hover Zoom+

Damn I'm using that. I guess the article means he hasn't sold out yet though.

[–] Snapz 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Reverse switcheroo... this article boosts downloads because people think he has unique integrity in the field, then he sells for double

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Would be fucked up but clever hah

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do anyone knows if in Firefox is the same situation, or if they take some actions when a extension changes hands?

[–] Spotlight7573 2 points 1 year ago

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/

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