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 🚀 . 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 🙄).
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!
Please don’t do this! Rich people love living in obscurity, it keeps attention and anger from their stupid decisions away from them and on to some scapegoat. This is like the opposite of the Streisand Effect and will only serve their interests. I know it’s annoying to keep seeing the same billionaires in the headlines but the alternative is to be passive about their awful projects and the harm they’re doing to the world. You’ll only be doing them a favor with this addon.
Nah that’s alright. It’s not like we can do anything about them anyway. I’m just going to ignore them.
deleted by creator
So disable it when you want to. Y’all are making this way too complicated for no reason.
Except Musk. Musk loves any kind of publicity and he understands that people love to look at clown billionaires. It’s a great disarming tactic. The public sees him as that harmless prankster and not a threat.
Is there a Chrom[e/ium] version by chance?
Why not use Firefox?
Because they don’t? There’s FOSS Chromium-based browsers that respect privacy that would benefit from this.
I’m sorry I didn’t realize you spoke for db2
Why not use [browser you don’t use]?
Correct, that was my question. Why would you use a chromium browser instead of Firefox?
It’s not like firefox is expensive or difficult to get/install.Because I don’t want to. I was somewhat involved in Gecko development, used Phoenix before it became Firefox, even compiled it on BeOS once or twice, I didn’t like the direction it took when it broke compatibility with SeaMonkey and it hasn’t gotten better from what I’ve seen. Is that enough answer?
I honestly don’t know if that was enough answer. You’re extremely defensive over a simple question.
If you say so.
Is this a good enough reason for you to swap? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/12/googles-manifest-v3-still-hurts-privacy-security-innovation
Isn’t it important to keep tabs on what the obscenely powerful are up to? I.e. to try to hold them accountable, to be informed on what you’re protesting and criticizing, to prepare for what they’re going to do next that may affect you?
While I agree it, does get tiring to see it in my feed 24/7. I can see this being useful for people who need a break.
Soma
Would be nice to use AI and determine whether the article youre blocking is positive about them or negative and only show the negative ones.
It’s incredible. They claim freedom is what they want, but they crave “the algorithm”…
Intentional echo chamber moment
Or we could not let robots decide what is good or bad.
It’s not robots though, it’s math. Which, from having gone to public school… generally translates to “magic” <insert hand waving> to most people.
Love it. Keep going.
I get it, so I installed the extension and browsed with it today. My feedback is that I feel like blocking individual words like Elon or Bezos would be required to make this meaningful at all. I still saw a bunch of stuff about them that the filter didn’t catch because they are so ubiquitous that you don’t need to say their full name to communicate who you’re talking about.
At the same time, while I almost always don’t care and don’t want to hear about a piece of Elon news, it doesn’t mean I’m not interested in Twitter developments, but I think the filter will block most if not all links/info about Twitter since it’s intrinsically linked to Elon’s persona.
At the end of the day I think it’s a cool idea, but I don’t think you can effectively block these guys via this method without blocking any mention of any platform they’re associated with, which isn’t really what I want.
Thank you so much for trying it out! This truly is a very early prototype I quickly threw together. Given how much interest Lemmy has for the extension I will keep actively developing it. Maybe someday I can reach a state where the extension will be actually useful to you.
Doesnt work
I can see where you’re coming from, but at the same time; did you get this idea from “Brave New World”?
This is a great idea, I love it. Keep going!
I absolutely love this! God, I need it. There are several websites I have to use for school that have bullshit articles on the side bar that I would love to block these assholes from. And for the people talking about blocking them being ignoring the problem, you don’t have to keep it turned on all the time. Sometimes it would be nice to be able to scroll through something without having to know what the fuck warren buffet thinks, or how the emerald heir is going to cure cancer with the power of a truck that looks like a PS1 asset.
OP, I love this. Please tell me there’s a way to do to this from Android?
Firefox beta on Android can use extensions that are designed for desktop. Some only work in desktop mode but so far all the ones I’ve tried work. The setup is a little complex if the author hasn’t marked it as compatible with mobile, but it is possible
You wouldn’t be able to link me to a tutorial to do that, would you? I’m not trying most technologically inclined, tbh.
Not the person you’re replying to but here’s the tutorial
Btw the setup while completely doable is pretty convoluted. It’s clear that Mozilla really doesn’t want us to do it.
This option only exists to shut up a few loud nerds.
Edit: I actually tried to follow the tutorial and a few issues showed up.
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If you’re adding addons to your collection for first time it only shows mobile addons in the search results. To see desktop addons you need to open the page in desktop mode and tell it to show desktop addons.
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Mozilla’s addon search results are really bad. Searching “block the rich” only gives you bad results. “Block rich” or “the rich” aren’t any better. Only search term that worked was “rich” and even then the addon was pretty far down in the search results.
Thank you! I’ll try and make this my project this weekend. Haha.
Thank you. That is the same tutorial I used.
I too encountered those same stumbling blocks.
I found it was easiest to browse add-ons on my PC and save them to the list there, then subscribe to the list on mobile
Wow. Looks like that website is only usable in desktop mode. Thanks, that makes it a bit simpler.
Edit: Wait WTF I can absolutely just browse the website in mobile mode and add addons to my collection. The tutorial was pretty misleading. Searching for addons in my collection is worst way to get new addons.
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But then you won’t know how they are not paying taxes, or getting money from the government.
Isn’t the answer, like, “always”, anyway?
Yeah, the anger is the fuel you need to take these fuckers down.
You brilliant, brilliant person.
I think you’re supposed to get angry, not ignore them.
Why can’t I do both? 😊
I am already protesting so many of their services and products.
I do not wish for their stream of consciousness to invade my internet 24/7. I can easily disable my plugin and get a general idea of what they’ve been up to whenever I feel like it.
Absolutely. No one has to be angry all the time.
Nah, let’s put our fingers in our ears while we get fucked in the ass.
Nah, let’s look at daily screenshots of Elon’s tweets while we get fucked in the ass. In the end, aren’t we still getting fucked?
I’d rather schedule the fuckings for 9pm Sunday evenings when I disable my plugin for 30 minutes and catch up.
I hope you stay up all night, every night, sitting around very very angrily. That’ll show them!
I like to get kissed first
Can I get one that applies to millionaire celebrities?
Instant type addons.mozilla.org into searchbar
This is fantastic. I have but one request: Allow us to block any word / string we want :)
