[HN Gopher] Show HN: Incoggo - Free Adblocker for Paywalls
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Show HN: Incoggo - Free Adblocker for Paywalls
Author : ian-bateman
Score : 20 points
Date : 2021-12-06 19:50 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (incoggo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (incoggo.com)
| deleted_account wrote:
| When did a paid subscription to a periodical become synonymous
| with advertising?
|
| That said, I hope they support video soon so I can get rid of
| that annoying NetflixHBOHuluDisney+ paywall.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I really hope they unblock Steam too, so I can click "play now"
| and not have to pay for the game. Spotify blocking would be
| nice too, since why should I have to pay for a digital asset?
| All these roadblocks just make it harder for me to access their
| content. What a slog!
| [deleted]
| smoldesu wrote:
| Uh... why isn't this a browser extension? Asking me to install an
| entire program onto my computer is extremely sketchy.
| ian-bateman wrote:
| TL;DR - we can unblock a lot of things with this approach that
| browser extensions can't; it also works across all browsers
| (esp. relevant for Safari users).
|
| Digging in, there are a few reasons actually - first is, Chrome
| removes extensions with this kind of functionality from the Web
| Store constantly (only option would be to sideload).
|
| Under the hood, Incoggo is also actually a local proxy (it adds
| a trusted root cert during the install process - we have some
| details on this / other potential issues / concerns on our
| forum). Reason for this being, Chrome extensions can't modify
| inbound requests in the way that's required to unblock several
| of the publications we support (NYT, Bloomberg, WaPo being key
| examples).
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > it adds a trusted root cert during the install process
|
| That's a non-starter for me. I do not want an application to
| be able to MITM _all_ traffic.
|
| Surely you just need to be able to MITM certain domains (the
| ones of the paywalled websites you unblock), can't you just
| create individual self-signed certificates for those and
| trust them one by one?
| ian-bateman wrote:
| That's understandable - if you'd like a work around for
| now, the app has a 'pause' feature (which, if active, will
| cease to proxy traffic completely - you can just turn it on
| briefly as needed, then 'pause' it after loading the
| article).
|
| The reason for the root cert is that in short order (after
| cleaning up our infra, etc.) we're actually planning to
| expand to a full-spectrum adblocker.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Sideloading would frankly make more sense to me. As it is,
| there are so many "gotchas" that I wouldn't be inclined to
| daily-drive this, especially since my Macbook sits in my
| drawer collecting dust. Plus, a lot of these security
| concerns aren't just minor whoopsies: adding lines to my
| sudoers file? That's not a practice that should be normalized
| for something like this. You're shaving an awful lot of yak
| for something that should have a more streamlined approach in
| the first place. If Safari causes you issues, I have no idea
| why you'd kowtow to a single browser with a fraction of the
| desktop browsing market share, throwing the rest of the
| options by the wayside. Maybe I'm coming at this from a
| different point of view, but you're cutting an awful lot of
| people out just to get an MVP that works for _you_. Hopefully
| some day Incog gets a more agnostic, safe implimentation.
| ian-bateman wrote:
| Yeah that's totally fair & we try to be pretty upfront
| about the issues (FAQ + forum). There's definitely a lot of
| bubblegum and duct-tape on this at the moment - been
| putting a lot of work in to fix the bigger issues ASAP
| (been modeling a lot off the AdGuard approach / targeting
| parity).
|
| Really making the longer-term bet here that with a lot of
| work, the underlying proxy infrastructure will enable a lot
| of really interesting possibilities, and the shorter-term
| bet that with this approach we can create the best / most
| effective adblocker for paywalls _by far_.
| annecruz1996 wrote:
| That kind of makes sense. I guess with Manifest v3 coming /
| Manifest v2 getting EOL'd, this will probably continue to
| work in future.
|
| Also, screw building extensions for Safari.
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