[HN Gopher] Use Bookmarklets on Chrome on Android (2020)
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Use Bookmarklets on Chrome on Android (2020)
        
       Author : danuker
       Score  : 24 points
       Date   : 2022-10-02 16:40 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (paul.kinlan.me)
 (TXT) w3m dump (paul.kinlan.me)
        
       | andirk wrote:
       | Is a bookmarklet the same as pasting Javascript in to the browser
       | console?
        
         | kinlan wrote:
         | Pretty much
        
           | kragen wrote:
           | Does Chrome on Android have a browser console?
        
       | w_for_wumbo wrote:
       | This seems convenient, but now I worry scammers will use this as
       | another way of getting people to run arbitrary JavaScript on the
       | client's device. 'Instructions' on how to do {x}, but it's also
       | siphoning cookies off to an undisclosed backend.
        
         | kinlan wrote:
         | This is the worry a lot of people have. The only real saving
         | grace is that copying in JS to the address bar doesn't execute
         | the code, and it's a bit of a pain to get bookmarklets
         | bookmarked.
        
       | kinlan wrote:
       | Author here. Hello.
       | 
       | Bookmarklets are a massively under used feature. I love them :)
        
       | 627467 wrote:
       | I feel bookmarklets are so underrated. I get that apps and
       | extensions - when available - can provide a better experience but
       | bookmarklets work to avoid having to install yet another
       | app/extension.
        
       | russellbeattie wrote:
       | This is awesome! I wish I had seen it years ago.
       | 
       | I also wish the Chrome team would finally do something about the
       | miserable bookmarking functionality in all versions of Chrome.
       | There's no reason for it to be so featureless. Just adding some
       | simple tweaks would make it so much more useful:
       | 
       | Sortable table:                 - Name       - Summary (Same as
       | presented in a search)       - Date added,        - Last date
       | visited,        - Domain       - Path,        - Thumbnail /
       | favicon       - Meta data: published, author, opengraph/Twitter
       | info metadata, feed.       - Editable Notes
       | 
       | Additional basic features:                 - Quick list of most
       | recent bookmarks       - Quick List of most used bookmarks
       | - Duplication detection       - Embedded videos for YouTube vids
       | - Online access for editing and management, sharing and
       | broken/dead link detection.
       | 
       | Throw some ads in there as well if that's what Google is worried
       | about. It's just a huge oversight on their part to ignore such a
       | fundamental feature for over a decade. Same for Mozilla.
       | 
       | There's already so much data stored about your browsing activity,
       | this is just a matter of UI, not any major internal dev effort.
       | 
       | Interesting internal pages:                 - chrome://site-
       | engagement/       - chrome://media-engagement/       -
       | chrome://offline-internals/       - chrome://snippets-internals/
        
         | andirk wrote:
         | Every time i see someone's bookmarks, its a huge unending
         | unsorted list. Have we all given up on bookmarks? And what's
         | Pocket?
        
           | kragen wrote:
           | My bookmark file has hashtags, dates, and summaries, so I can
           | grep it (or isearch it in Emacs). That's enough to be
           | extremely useful.
        
       | danuker wrote:
       | I was surprised to find out that Kill-sticky works with this
       | method.
       | 
       | It was recently featured on HN:
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32998091
        
       | Groxx wrote:
       | While I love this trick: this is yet another reason that I use
       | Firefox on Android, and am so baffled and enraged that they broke
       | extensions so badly. This seems like it may be mere inches away
       | from a bugfix getting rid of it.
       | 
       | Modifying websites is one of the absolute best things about
       | websites. You don't have to put up with sites' nonsense.
        
         | causality0 wrote:
         | Performance and stability are still godawful on Firefox Android
         | though.
        
       | kgbcia wrote:
       | add this page as a bookmark then click edit to change to
       | JavaScript url. try squarefree.com for some bookmarklets better
       | than manifest v3.
        
       | rektide wrote:
       | Alas, many sites have Content-Security Policies, which doesn't
       | block bookmarklets outright, but keeps them from functioning in
       | basic ways: often CSP prevents contact with other sites.
       | 
       | So you can modify the page, yes. But you can't submit content to
       | other domains. You can't load more code. This double-dooms kick-
       | ass awesome extensions like Hypothes.is[1], the brilliant Web
       | Annotation tool/bookmarklet: the bookmarklet can't load the rest
       | of the code needed to launch the experience, and the bookmarklet
       | can't send those annotations the user makes to the user's
       | destination.
       | 
       | I've seen very little interest when issues are raised about doing
       | anything to help Bookmarklets[1]. Browsers seemingly don't care
       | about these users & are fine with Bookmarklets being left to rot
       | away. Meanwhile Chrome on Android still has no other means for
       | users to extend/augment/enhance their own web experience, as
       | Chrome has said repeatedly Extensions will not be supported on
       | mobile, leaving users with nothing.
       | 
       | [1] https://web.hypothes.is/help/installing-the-bookmarklet/
       | 
       | [2] https://github.com/w3c/webappsec-csp/issues/444
        
         | jaden wrote:
         | This is doubly frustrating when the spec explicitly says CSP
         | shouldn't interfere with bookmarklets.
         | 
         | > Policy enforced on a resource SHOULD NOT interfere with the
         | operation of user-agent features like addons, extensions, or
         | bookmarklets.
         | 
         | https://www.w3.org/TR/CSP/#extensions
        
           | danuker wrote:
           | The user-agent not doing what the user wants is not a user-
           | agent.
           | 
           | I recently wanted to edit a Firefox theme to highlight the
           | active tab more strongly.
           | 
           | Surprise! To install extensions not signed by Mozilla, you
           | need Firefox Developer Edition.
           | 
           | Because a configuration option would make it too easy.
        
       | nmstoker wrote:
       | You used to be able to use a Chrome Mobile bookmarklet to trigger
       | view source, which was kind of handy, but it got broken several
       | years back unfortunately.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2022-10-02 23:01 UTC)