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Comment by nvr219 | Hacker News Reader

Here is where you can download the extension

Here's the extension zip files that were archived from the Chrome Store. You can get all versions back to 1.0.

https://extensions.crxcavator.io/ohceakcebcalehmaliegoenklid... https://extensions.crxcavator.io/ohceakcebcalehmaliegoenklid... https://extensions.crxcavator.io/ohceakcebcalehmaliegoenklid...

They are CRX (Chrome Extension) files, some manual steps needed to unpack, or change .zip to .crx and open with Chrome. https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/q3smfr/unfollo...

Install Instructions: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/q3smfr/unfollo...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/q3smfr/unfollo...

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I didn’t know about this extension but now I do. Thanks FB lawyers.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

I didn't know what Barbra Streisand's Malibu residence looked like, but now I do.

Ah yes, the Streisand Streisand effect, the effect of being the Streisand referred to in the Streisand effect and having your private details brought up in metaconversations

it's very satisfying to me that the Streisand Streisand effect is an example of the Streisand effect. It's like F(F(x)) = F(x).

Streisand should counter with a super-injunction, to complete the circle.

Works at least for F(x) = c and F(x) = x (∀c ∈ ℝ)

(this is not legal advice)

If 'x' is a vector, then it works for a lot of other functions as well (all the projections into a lower-dimensional vector space).

“The Streisand effect is idempotent”

Only on HN

Re: Streisand effect effect vs Streisand Streisand effect. They both work, I thought of it as Streisand (possessive of specific person) "Streisand effect" (concept). Also the doubling on the left seems beneficially sillier

Beautiful view from her house but how do you get down to the beach?

There's typically stairs somewhere in the area for beaches like that.

You my friend, haven't been invited to parties at fancy places a lot, have you?

The public can walk there from Paradise Cove, which you can access from PCH after Bob Morris lost his big lawsuit.

The combination of over-tourism (accelerated by way too many Airbnbs), social media and rising sea levels means that this beach isn’t the beautiful secret it used to be, so ... have a nice time visiting!

I lived on Zumirez Drive when this happened (well, actually, on the corner of PCH and Zumirez). I was super-excited to show CaliforniaCoastline.org to all of the neighbors, telling them, “isn’t this cool? We can see our beach on here!” I guess some of the neighbors weren’t as thrilled...

That neighborhood was really special and weird. Streisand got a lot of negative press for what she did, but she was also legitimately afraid of stalkers and crazy people. It was a really sad situation to observe. I’ll write something about this at some point, after the other 100 strange stories in the queue.

My first impression is that if you need a program to help you unfollow, you seem to have a problem already…

I don’t think anyone is arguing with that. It’s just that the problem is not rare (unfortunately)

Not really. With the confusing interface Facebook introduced (even the Activities Log where I used to find logged actions more easily), it has become more difficult to find the list of people/pages followed. It's not surprising that they would often look for tools that can simplify the process instead of finding a needle in Facebook's own haystack.

Chrome doesn't require extensions to be signed? Or hasn't revoked the signature?

I could be wrong, but I think you can side-load any extension locally. About 3 years ago Google made it impossible to have users click a link on your website and install that way (which some people referred to as side-loading), but I think you can still enable dev mode and side-load a downloaded file.

At least as of 2 years ago, you could go to chrome://extensions, click a "Dev Mode' toggle in the top right, and sideload a downloaded crx (I know from installing https://adnauseam.io/ every time I had to use a Chromebook, it’s banned from the webstore for adding obfuscatory privacy enhancements designed as research by Daniel C. Howe and Helen Nissenbaum to gorhill's great µBlock Origin).

The linked instructions involve loading the unpacked extension in developer mode. There isn't really a way of preventing that without crippling the ability of extension developers to develop their own extensions.

Well, Firefox prevents that unless you download a separate developer version that doesn’t update, and Mozilla insists that’s for security.

My Firefox Developer Edition updates just fine by itself. Maybe a (corporate) firewall is blocking the update server on your machine/network and your corporate software repo is only installing the enduser Firefox?

I haven't checked it in a while and haven't tried, I've just been going by what I remember from the last time I tried to get around this restriction, and what someone brings up every time Dev Edition is suggested as an alternative. I guess it's worth trying out again.

If Mozilla has unbroken the Developer edition, and it's available to everyone, great! Firefox is almost back to the functionality it had in 2016!

In any case, no, I'm not on a corporate firewall, you were kind of jumping to (oddly specific) conclusions there. And firewalls don't work like that.

It's always worked for me.

I think the unbranded version doesn't update. Or used to not update. But that's not developer.

How so? I’m on FF 91 (not dev ed) and can load from a self-built zip file just fine

The greatest security threat is that browser vendors become increasingly untrustworthy, so a signed app doesn't really say it doesn't exploit you to the maximum of its ability.

Oh agreed, I hate Mozilla’s thinking on security.

I recommend avoiding all browser extensions unless they come from well-known developers (eg 1Password) and they’re downloaded and installed through official channels.

Browser extensions have a lot of access to your browsing activity and can phone home as well. One of the reasons this extension was sent a C&D was that it was sending some data home to the author’s server. That might be what the install instructions above are hinting at with the warning to examine the JS and remove any phone-home code. The original author defended the data collection as just enough to make sure the plug-in was working, except for study participants who apparently submitted much more information through the plug-in. Either way, I wouldn’t rush to install a plug-in that was caught sending any of my social media data to a 3rd-party server.

I certainly would not install a browser extension from an unknown 3rd-party website just to spite Facebook, regardless the claimed origin of the code.

One of the reasons I stopped using chrome was “extensions” I had 2-3 popular extensions like Adblock and something else. They were leaking information for every page I visited! I contacted the “source” where I saw my information leak but there was no reply and nothing. Either chrome itself leaks that info or one of the popular extensions.

Sure, the extensions ecosystem is a cesspool, but you know you can use Chrome without extensions?

If you see bad behaviour from an extension, I would flag it on Chrome store.

As an extension developer, yes please do this. I get constant offers to "purchase" my extension from shady marketing companies, and it's obviously quite lucrative for them based on some of the offers they're making.

If extensions were shut down quickly for shady behavior there wouldn't be a market for it.

No extension is needed. (I never use extensions for anything.) Unfollowing all friends is not complicated and can be done in a couple of lines of shell script, or using whatever programming language or HTTP client one chooses. Obviously, curl would work. There are a hundreds of ways to send HTTP requests. It is a very simple protocol. No POST requests are even necessary, only GET.

1. Log in to Facebook

2. Open "Developer Tools" (F12), select the "Network" tab, locate "Request Headers", Alt-click on "Cookie:" and select "Copy value". Use this in each HTTP request. Do not log out yet.

The URL for the Friends list is

   https://mbasic.facebook.com/friends/center/friends/?ppk=1

where 1 is the page number.

Using m.facebook.com as the domain will also work. There 10 friends per page.

3. Extract the UID for each friend from the HTML and create the new "unfollow" URLs.

   grep -o "uid=[^&]*" 1.html|sed 's>uid=/https://mbasic.facebook.com/a/subscriptions/remove?subject_id=>'

4. Log out.

Done.

Correction

Unfortunately we need a GFID in addition to the UID, so more steps are required

3. Extract and GET hovercard URLs.

   grep -o "/friends/hovercard/mbasic/?uid=[^\"]*" 1.htm|sed 's/%3D/=/g;s/%3A/:/;s>%2F>/>g;s/&amp;/\&/g;s/%26/\&/g;s/%3F/?/;s>^>https://mbasic.facebook.com>'

4. Extract and GET profile URLs.

   grep -o "href=./[^*\"]*" 2.htm|sed '/?/d;/data\/manifest/d;s>href=.>https://mbasic.facebook.com>'

5. Extract and GET "unfollow" URLs

NB Making too many requests for profiles too close together may draw a temporary, limited block.

   grep -o "href=.[^\"]*" 3.htm|sed -n '/subscriptions/s>href=.>https://mbasic.facebook.com>p'

6. Log out.

Done.

The five Facebook cookies needed are:

c_user xs fr sb datr