I'm good, to be honest. I mean, the modern web browser is so feature creeped that the few extensions I do install really just make it work like I need it to and don't add anything. Adguard removes...
I'm good, to be honest.
I mean, the modern web browser is so feature creeped that the few extensions I do install really just make it work like I need it to and don't add anything. Adguard removes the ads. Kagi Search sets the search engine to Kagi. React and Vercel show me useful debug into in, you guessed it, React and Vercel.
And while we're on the topic, who actually uses Grammarly? Like, genuinely? Is spelling correctly such a big problem in so many people's lives? Sure, the dyslexics are here and there, and maybe you have a few hangups and are an otherwise decent typist, but how many people have to struggle with writing words for an extension like Grammarly to become financially viable?
Also, wasn't Grammarly just renamed to Superhuman or something?
With everything we do in the browser, it’s also important to remember that every extension you install is a security vulnerability. Most have access to all of the pages you access.
With everything we do in the browser, it’s also important to remember that every extension you install is a security vulnerability. Most have access to all of the pages you access.
Replying for visibility... The following scenario happens often enough to make it worth removing any extension you're not actively using and avoiding extensions from even slightly questionable...
Replying for visibility... The following scenario happens often enough to make it worth removing any extension you're not actively using and avoiding extensions from even slightly questionable publishers: Bad actors buy an aging, popular, extension that hordes of people don't necessarily even remember they have installed. Instant access to countless people's browsers. Bad actors here doesn't necessarily mean hackers after financial info, it's often shady ad companies who want telemetry. Sometimes they build the extensions themselves rather than buy them. In one recently uncovered case a family of extensions that offered "protection" turned out to be actively exfiltrating complete transcripts of users' interactions with LLM chats. Some of the extensions were "certified" by the extension store.
Yeah. I've received numerous emails about adding a 3rd party web search component to my extension. It only has a small install base across browsers, but has the featured badge on the Chrome Web Store.
Yeah. I've received numerous emails about adding a 3rd party web search component to my extension.
It only has a small install base across browsers, but has the featured badge on the Chrome Web Store.
I understand Grammarly is popular with students. Many colleges and universities make it available to their students for free. I'd find it a little heavy for conversational use, but for more...
I understand Grammarly is popular with students. Many colleges and universities make it available to their students for free. I'd find it a little heavy for conversational use, but for more serious writing I'd appreciate having a review pass.
As a heads up, you can set the default search engine, as well as custom search keywords in almost all browsers. So you may be able to drop the Kagi extension from your lineup.
With the online university I'm currently enrolled, many professors/graders will send your papers back for revision if you haven't both run it through Grammarly and "fixed" everything it points...
With the online university I'm currently enrolled, many professors/graders will send your papers back for revision if you haven't both run it through Grammarly and "fixed" everything it points out. This drives me crazy because the way it wants to write is so diverged from how I usually write, and grammatically there's usually nothing actually wrong with my writing. It's almost but not quite like having ChatGPT take a pass over the paper.
My personal preference is to just use the built-in Mac spell/grammar check in browsers, Pages, etc. It's adequate and doesn't try to herd me into any particular writing style.
I use Safari, and for some inexplicable reason you can't add a custom engine there, but on my Chromium browsers that's what I do. Thanks though, I wish it were that easy.
I use Safari, and for some inexplicable reason you can't add a custom engine there, but on my Chromium browsers that's what I do. Thanks though, I wish it were that easy.
You could also switch to the kagi browser Orion. But I’m assuming you are aware of that. Since it’s built atop Safari it’s a pretty easy switch. That’s where I’m at.
You could also switch to the kagi browser Orion. But I’m assuming you are aware of that. Since it’s built atop Safari it’s a pretty easy switch. That’s where I’m at.
I really want to like Orion, but on Mac it’s extremely buggy. Tons of websites just don’t work properly. Even ones that work fine on safari. In iOS, it’s a lot better, but it still has some weird...
I really want to like Orion, but on Mac it’s extremely buggy. Tons of websites just don’t work properly. Even ones that work fine on safari. In iOS, it’s a lot better, but it still has some weird unexplained slow downs and crashes that iOS safari doesn’t have.
This is just one of those exchanges on the internet where one person has one experience and another a totally different one. I haven’t had any issues with Orion as a daily driver (on iOS or...
This is just one of those exchanges on the internet where one person has one experience and another a totally different one. I haven’t had any issues with Orion as a daily driver (on iOS or MacOS).
I guess now that I think about it, YouTube would sometimes not allow for scrolling. But I don’t think I’ve had that issue for a bit.
Because Kagi requires login, you’d have to log in each time you want to use it in a private window. Not having to do that is very convenient. Kagi also doesn’t maintain your search history, so...
Because Kagi requires login, you’d have to log in each time you want to use it in a private window. Not having to do that is very convenient. Kagi also doesn’t maintain your search history, so it’s not like my “private window” searches will appear in my account, because none of my searches do.
In addition to what @jonah said*, since I believe earlier this year Kagi has offered a “Privacy Pass” which just checks whether you have a search token available, and then consumes it, without...
In addition to what @jonah said*, since I believe earlier this year Kagi has offered a “Privacy Pass” which just checks whether you have a search token available, and then consumes it, without tying anything to your account at all. It’s pretty neat, although my trust in them is high enough at this point that I haven’t extensively tested it if I’m being honest. :P
*which also implies that no previous search results affect future ones via opaque “personalization”, unless you specifically want them to do so via e.g. custom page rank/preference tweaking or search lenses
I am a professional writer and editor, and I pay for my own Grammarly subscription. It's an excellent way to prevent typos, and it cleans up my usual online-chat laziness. Maybe it's because I...
I am a professional writer and editor, and I pay for my own Grammarly subscription. It's an excellent way to prevent typos, and it cleans up my usual online-chat laziness.
Maybe it's because I care about getting it right more than most people do. "A writer is someone for whom writing is much harder than it is for the others." – Ken Laws
With the death of Pocket, Glasp might actually be a handy replacement for my hierarchy of bookmarks. Pocket used to fit between that "I'll pin that tab for today/tomorrow" and "I'll make a...
With the death of Pocket, Glasp might actually be a handy replacement for my hierarchy of bookmarks. Pocket used to fit between that "I'll pin that tab for today/tomorrow" and "I'll make a bookmark that will last for months/years". If it can even let me annotate specific passages and images that's all the better.
But I do agree that everything else wasn't jumping out at me. Most sites these days have a dark mode built in, I don't need something to clean up my speech (I write just like this everywhere and some shorter form sites have already accused me of using AI. I'll take the backhanded compliment ), I have recording software already, and Firefox has a reading mode built in (and I ofc have an ad blocker).
As @Wes mentioned, Grammarly is popular with students and in particular those for whom English isn't their primary language. I have several coworkers who use it. Not on everything, but they...
As @Wes mentioned, Grammarly is popular with students and in particular those for whom English isn't their primary language. I have several coworkers who use it. Not on everything, but they appreciate it's help.
Half of what PrintFriendly does is already done via reader mode in Firefox. It strips the page to just content, no ads or interactable sections, and I can choose the color scheme and font to match...
Half of what PrintFriendly does is already done via reader mode in Firefox. It strips the page to just content, no ads or interactable sections, and I can choose the color scheme and font to match my needs. I get that it also lets you reformat for printing (hence the name) but that's not a common use case. Just use reader mode in the browser before adding another extension.
The rest of the list felt similar. Scribe could be nice but I wouldn't be surprised if I could do a better job myself. Grammarly is only going to be useful if I'm doing a lot of writing via the browser, which I usually don't. DarkReader is known to break formatting on some sites. Glasp seems useful as well, but I also try to dedicate time to actually consuming the original content. Summaries lose nuance, and I don't trust an AI to get it.
One thing I don't like about the reader mode in firefox is sometimes it doesn't turn a page into a reader mode properly, it will omit/ignore certain parts of an article. I still use it all the...
One thing I don't like about the reader mode in firefox is sometimes it doesn't turn a page into a reader mode properly, it will omit/ignore certain parts of an article. I still use it all the time but always looking for another extension to use in combination with the reader mode.
I just posted elsewhere in the thread about security issues with extensions, following up to say: thanks for the list! The replies so far make it sound like Tildes is angry at browser extensions....
I just posted elsewhere in the thread about security issues with extensions, following up to say: thanks for the list! The replies so far make it sound like Tildes is angry at browser extensions. I use some, dark reader among them for uncooperative websites when my light mode allergic partner is looking over my shoulder, squinting.
My personal "can't live without" extension is the Library Extension. https://www.libraryextension.com/ If you're browsing books online (such as Amazon), it does a lookup at my local library. With...
If you're browsing books online (such as Amazon), it does a lookup at my local library. With a click or two, I can put a book on Hold. This has saved me a lot of money.
I do appreciate PrintFriendly quite a bit! The first time I came across it was as an embedded feature in some old-school D&D blogs I followed, which made it a breeze to download/trim down...
I do appreciate PrintFriendly quite a bit! The first time I came across it was as an embedded feature in some old-school D&D blogs I followed, which made it a breeze to download/trim down specifically useful posts I wanted to save for future reference.
I'm good, to be honest.
I mean, the modern web browser is so feature creeped that the few extensions I do install really just make it work like I need it to and don't add anything. Adguard removes the ads. Kagi Search sets the search engine to Kagi. React and Vercel show me useful debug into in, you guessed it, React and Vercel.
And while we're on the topic, who actually uses Grammarly? Like, genuinely? Is spelling correctly such a big problem in so many people's lives? Sure, the dyslexics are here and there, and maybe you have a few hangups and are an otherwise decent typist, but how many people have to struggle with writing words for an extension like Grammarly to become financially viable?
Also, wasn't Grammarly just renamed to Superhuman or something?
With everything we do in the browser, it’s also important to remember that every extension you install is a security vulnerability. Most have access to all of the pages you access.
Replying for visibility... The following scenario happens often enough to make it worth removing any extension you're not actively using and avoiding extensions from even slightly questionable publishers: Bad actors buy an aging, popular, extension that hordes of people don't necessarily even remember they have installed. Instant access to countless people's browsers. Bad actors here doesn't necessarily mean hackers after financial info, it's often shady ad companies who want telemetry. Sometimes they build the extensions themselves rather than buy them. In one recently uncovered case a family of extensions that offered "protection" turned out to be actively exfiltrating complete transcripts of users' interactions with LLM chats. Some of the extensions were "certified" by the extension store.
Yeah. I've received numerous emails about adding a 3rd party web search component to my extension.
It only has a small install base across browsers, but has the featured badge on the Chrome Web Store.
I understand Grammarly is popular with students. Many colleges and universities make it available to their students for free. I'd find it a little heavy for conversational use, but for more serious writing I'd appreciate having a review pass.
As a heads up, you can set the default search engine, as well as custom search keywords in almost all browsers. So you may be able to drop the Kagi extension from your lineup.
With the online university I'm currently enrolled, many professors/graders will send your papers back for revision if you haven't both run it through Grammarly and "fixed" everything it points out. This drives me crazy because the way it wants to write is so diverged from how I usually write, and grammatically there's usually nothing actually wrong with my writing. It's almost but not quite like having ChatGPT take a pass over the paper.
My personal preference is to just use the built-in Mac spell/grammar check in browsers, Pages, etc. It's adequate and doesn't try to herd me into any particular writing style.
I use Safari, and for some inexplicable reason you can't add a custom engine there, but on my Chromium browsers that's what I do. Thanks though, I wish it were that easy.
You could also switch to the kagi browser Orion. But I’m assuming you are aware of that. Since it’s built atop Safari it’s a pretty easy switch. That’s where I’m at.
Already doing that. But sometimes Orion is buggy, so I have a backup.
I really want to like Orion, but on Mac it’s extremely buggy. Tons of websites just don’t work properly. Even ones that work fine on safari. In iOS, it’s a lot better, but it still has some weird unexplained slow downs and crashes that iOS safari doesn’t have.
This is just one of those exchanges on the internet where one person has one experience and another a totally different one. I haven’t had any issues with Orion as a daily driver (on iOS or MacOS).
I guess now that I think about it, YouTube would sometimes not allow for scrolling. But I don’t think I’ve had that issue for a bit.
at least for me, the main benefit of the kagi extension is that it persists your session in private windows
Why would you want that? Isn't that contrary to the purpose of private sessions?
Because Kagi requires login, you’d have to log in each time you want to use it in a private window. Not having to do that is very convenient. Kagi also doesn’t maintain your search history, so it’s not like my “private window” searches will appear in my account, because none of my searches do.
In addition to what @jonah said*, since I believe earlier this year Kagi has offered a “Privacy Pass” which just checks whether you have a search token available, and then consumes it, without tying anything to your account at all. It’s pretty neat, although my trust in them is high enough at this point that I haven’t extensively tested it if I’m being honest. :P
*which also implies that no previous search results affect future ones via opaque “personalization”, unless you specifically want them to do so via e.g. custom page rank/preference tweaking or search lenses
I am a professional writer and editor, and I pay for my own Grammarly subscription. It's an excellent way to prevent typos, and it cleans up my usual online-chat laziness.
Maybe it's because I care about getting it right more than most people do. "A writer is someone for whom writing is much harder than it is for the others." – Ken Laws
Wouldn't grammarly then make it much easier (than it is for others) to write correctly?
It does. Now the stuff that I dash off has better wording and punctuation.
With the death of Pocket, Glasp might actually be a handy replacement for my hierarchy of bookmarks. Pocket used to fit between that "I'll pin that tab for today/tomorrow" and "I'll make a bookmark that will last for months/years". If it can even let me annotate specific passages and images that's all the better.
But I do agree that everything else wasn't jumping out at me. Most sites these days have a dark mode built in, I don't need something to clean up my speech (I write just like this everywhere and some shorter form sites have already accused me of using AI. I'll take the backhanded compliment ), I have recording software already, and Firefox has a reading mode built in (and I ofc have an ad blocker).
As @Wes mentioned, Grammarly is popular with students and in particular those for whom English isn't their primary language. I have several coworkers who use it. Not on everything, but they appreciate it's help.
Half of what PrintFriendly does is already done via reader mode in Firefox. It strips the page to just content, no ads or interactable sections, and I can choose the color scheme and font to match my needs. I get that it also lets you reformat for printing (hence the name) but that's not a common use case. Just use reader mode in the browser before adding another extension.
The rest of the list felt similar. Scribe could be nice but I wouldn't be surprised if I could do a better job myself. Grammarly is only going to be useful if I'm doing a lot of writing via the browser, which I usually don't. DarkReader is known to break formatting on some sites. Glasp seems useful as well, but I also try to dedicate time to actually consuming the original content. Summaries lose nuance, and I don't trust an AI to get it.
So yeah, I'm good too.
One thing I don't like about the reader mode in firefox is sometimes it doesn't turn a page into a reader mode properly, it will omit/ignore certain parts of an article. I still use it all the time but always looking for another extension to use in combination with the reader mode.
I just posted elsewhere in the thread about security issues with extensions, following up to say: thanks for the list! The replies so far make it sound like Tildes is angry at browser extensions. I use some, dark reader among them for uncooperative websites when my light mode allergic partner is looking over my shoulder, squinting.
My personal "can't live without" extension is the Library Extension. https://www.libraryextension.com/
If you're browsing books online (such as Amazon), it does a lookup at my local library. With a click or two, I can put a book on Hold. This has saved me a lot of money.
Hey that's a pretty neat extension, thanks for sharing!
I do appreciate PrintFriendly quite a bit! The first time I came across it was as an embedded feature in some old-school D&D blogs I followed, which made it a breeze to download/trim down specifically useful posts I wanted to save for future reference.