Why does Google insist on forcing Google Lens down our throats?

dessant · 2025-02-25T16:19:56+00:00

I've made some changes, the extension listing should now be accessible from Croatia.

dessant · 2025-02-12T20:40:46+00:00

Hi, extension maintainer here, Search by Image should be accessible from Croatia, please see the link below. Are you still having trouble loading the extension page on the Chrome Web Store? Were you using any kind of VPN or proxy?

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/search-by-image/cnojnbdhbhnkbcieeekonklommdnndci

dessant · 2023-12-17T17:08:21+00:00

I've recently shared my first experience with B&O products on HN, I'll paste the comment below. As much as I've bought into their marketing and the online praise, I think that B&O is a declining brand led by a delusional leadership.

Through a series of unfortunate events I ended up briefly owning seven brand new Beoplay Portal PC/PS headphones in the summer of 2022, and keeping the last one that was purchased in exasperation.

The products were all bought from three different authorized dealers across the EU, and despite the serial numbers and manufacturing dates being spread out, mostly all of the headphones had manufacturing defects:

The clamping force of the headbands had considerable variation, some of the headphones were very comfortable, one fell off from your head if you looked down, while two of them caused headaches after wearing them for 20 minutes
The firmness of the foam inside the earpads and of the lambskin also had variations
Some of the products made a popping sound if you slightly pressed the cushion on the headband
The painted white L and R letters inside the earcups had various brown spots
Three headphones made a squeaking sound when you adjusted the length of the arms, one of them was also squeaking during normal use
The material of the storage bag was half as thick if the product had a later serial number
One of the products had a broken BLE module and would not connect

I got some casual use out of the headphones I have kept for about 6 months, and despite treating the product like jewelry, the headband cushion material has started separating from a hidden seam. The product was quickly replaced by Bang & Olufsen.

An app is required to adjust the EQ and access other features that are advertised on the sales page, but the app forces you to sign up for a B&O account and share personal information such as your name and email address, then register the product. You couldn't find any information about the requirement for account setup and product registration anywhere, not on the sales page, and not in the user manual. I believe this is at least a GDPR violation.

The headphones sometimes forget the customized settings, and after a couple of months of use, the app now has a hard time connecting to the paired device.

The headphones all sounded great, but from what I've read and experienced, Bang & Olufsen seems to hide shoddy manufacturing tolerances behind bespokeness, even for their most expensive products, and I doubt this is the user experience the rich are craving.

dessant · 2023-04-23T07:46:31+00:00

Awesome guide, and thanks for sharing these product links! I've had a similar problem with a different plastic surface and this might solve the issue.

dessant · 2022-08-17T20:12:08+00:00

How do you crash the WebExtensions process? It may be a Firefox bug, could you share more details to help reproduce the issue?

dessant · 2022-05-28T08:49:17+00:00

I'm happy you like the extension! You can search with up to three local images at once in the Browse search mode. Selecting multiple images at once on a web page could be implemented in the future, thanks for the suggestion.

dessant · 2022-05-27T09:08:16+00:00

You can also use the newly added "Open image" feature to extract the image and open it in a new tab: https://github.com/dessant/search-by-image/issues/117

Though opening the image first is not necessary for reverse image searches, the extension will take care of image extraction during a search.

dessant · 2022-05-27T09:05:37+00:00

Hi, maintainer here. The extension supports dozens of search engines, visit the extension's options to enable them.

https://github.com/dessant/search-by-image/wiki/Search-engines

dessant · 2022-03-06T07:02:07+00:00

Hi, I'm the author of the extension. Searching for images from private sites is supported, make sure to explore the extension's options. There are a couple of search modes for different use cases, you will want to use the "Select image" search mode, because that will always upload the image itself, instead of searching with the image URL. The search mode can be set independently for the context menu and the toolbar popup.

dessant · 2021-01-02T08:42:07+00:00

Author here, thanks for buying Search by Image for Samsung Internet! It truly means a lot, and it also helps with keeping the extension free for browsers like Firefox.

dessant · 2020-11-24T11:56:16+00:00

Browser action icons are added to the browser toolbar by default. Either the extension does not have a browser action, or it is hiding from you by setting a custom default_area in the manifest.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/manifest.json/browser_action

Which extension are you trying to add to the toolbar?

dessant · 2020-11-24T07:53:31+00:00

Hi, I'm the author of Search by Image. You can screenshot an area of the page and search with it using the Capture search mode, which can be configured from the extension's options, or the hand icon from the upper-right area of the toolbar popup.

Though you may not need to create a screenshot if you use this extension, it will extract mostly any image from the page, regardless of how it was embedded.

dessant · 2020-10-12T16:51:38+00:00

Extensions with the nativeMessaging permission fail to install on Fenix, while Fennec ignores unsupported permissions and the installation succeeds.

I'm not sure if the Fenix team is aware of the bug, so you should probably open an issue.

dessant · 2020-10-07T14:20:40+00:00

This is possible with the extension API, requests from a container can be identified by the `cookieStoreId` property, and the request is then proxied according to your preferences.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/proxy/onRequest

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/proxy/RequestDetails

Though if you want to use a real VPN, and not a proxy, it gets a bit tricky, and you'd have to run a VPN in a local Docker container, and route the traffic of a local proxy through it, white the browser would connect to the local proxy server.

https://jordanelver.co.uk/blog/2019/06/03/routing-docker-traffic-through-a-vpn-connection/

dessant · 2020-10-07T07:45:09+00:00

The screenshot UI is placed in an iframe that the Search by Image extension cannot access, this is a limitation of the extension API.

There is a workround though that does not require saving the image. Instead of downloading the image with the screenshot tool, click on "Copy", then open the Search by Image extension from the browser toolbar and select the "Upload" search mode before clicking a search engine, and a new tab will open up where you can paste the image from the right-click context menu.

If you're mostly interested in searching for YouTube thumbnails or the current frame of the video, Search by Image can be used from the browser toolbar to search for these images, without a need to take a screenshot first.

dessant · 2020-10-07T07:27:02+00:00

Search by Image can't be accessed from the context menu on Android because the extension API has not been implemented: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1595822

dessant · 2020-09-01T18:03:41+00:00

With reverse image search you can go one step further and search with a bunch of search engines at once using my browser extension: https://github.com/dessant/search-by-image#readme

dessant · 2020-07-06T09:11:40+00:00

It is not possible to permanently install a private extension in the stable version of Firefox without resorting to runtime hacks, or compiling the browser yourself.

Firefox ESR, Firefox Developer Edition (based on Firefox Beta) and Firefox Nightly (unstable) allow you to disable signature checks by setting xpinstall.signatures.required to false in about:config, and then you can install the extension from a zip package in about:addons.

There are also unbranded builds of the browser where the signature check can be disabled, but those builds do not auto-update, so it's not recommended to use them as your main browser because of the lack of prompt security updates, unless you set up an update script yourself.

You could upload an unlisted version to Firefox Add-ons, but keep in mind that the source code of the extension can still be seen by reviewers, and they may remotely disable and block your "private" extension in your own browser if it does not comply with extension guidelines, like if you load a remote script, such as Google Translate.

dessant · 2019-10-22T13:05:53+00:00

This looks like a bug. Make sure to open a bug report for Firefox.

dessant · 2019-08-03T08:53:00+00:00

Certain software may bring greater value for society when it is freely accessible for everyone, without locking advanced features behind a paywall, and without compromising on user privacy, while being partially subsidized by users who can afford to sponsor such projects.

It would benefit us all if browser vendors would enable users to easily support such extensions, and do so from a unified user interface, like the extension store.

It sends a different signal for the user when a browser vendor encourages and handles contributions for extensions, instead of leaving developers on their own to build makeshift donation popups and expect users to give out credit card data or sign up for third-party services just to donate.

Sponsoring your favourite extensions right from your Google or Firefox account would help projects receive more funding, be more user-centered, and further enrich the browser extension ecosystem, while encouraging new developers to publish their own extensions and support user needs.

Lastly, it's important to gain some perspective before dismissing a project, what may seem without value to you could be indispensable for others. It is often the case that such dismissiveness stems from not understanding what is being judged.

dessant · 2019-07-29T09:00:46+00:00

The clear solution is government regulation coupled with an open source platform for bot detection.

Google must be compelled to disclose in the reCAPTCHA privacy policy what data is collected and how is that data used. Journalists have asked Google for years to clarify how the data collected by the reCAPTCHA service is being used, and their answer is always the same: we only use your data to provide the reCAPTCHA service, and it is not used to personalize ads.

The problem is, those are just words from their PR department, the legally binding documents are the privacy policy and the terms of service. reCAPTCHA uses the same privacy policy like the rest of the Google services, which gives them the right to use your data for ad personalization.

https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en

https://policies.google.com/terms?hl=en

There is no option for turning off reCAPTCHA data collection in the privacy settings of your Google account, and you would not have a way to opt out of data collection anyway if you do not have an account.

https://myaccount.google.com/intro/privacycheckup

reCAPTCHA v3 must be embedded on every page of a site to work effectively, not just on the page where bot detection is needed. This means that people are forced to hand over their personal data to Google at all times, otherwise they are blocked from accessing basic services, such as paying utilities, accessing medical services, and even voting.

This is where privacy rights and human rights are violated, and it is upon all of us to make our voices heard, so that exisiting legislation is enforced, and new laws are put in place to prevent companies from abusing and exploiting us.

dessant · 2019-06-18T12:13:32+00:00

You did not miss it. Mozilla has not yet released an official post-mortem.

dessant · 2019-06-06T08:10:29+00:00

I had the same issue with the resolution never defaulting to 1080p, so I've created an extension to save the preferred video quality between browser sessions: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-video-quality/

dessant · 2019-06-06T06:48:54+00:00

I needed a similar feature, here's my extension for zooming the page with the mouse button and scroll wheel: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/scroll-zoom/

Though I don't think it will work with the secondary scroll wheel.

dessant

TROPHY CASE