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Comment by rodorgas | Hacker News Reader

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rodorgas

You can fix it using this Chrome Extension:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/videofixer-for-flu...

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Yes, but that would require using Chrome.

... and trusting extensions.

...and this extension can read and change data on ALL the sites you visit.

Took me three clicks to view the source code. Have you looked at it? Bloody hell. It's a CSS file. All the hard work is in finding the problem. Which this man has done for you.

In the time it took you guys to comment you could have written the user style yourself after looking at the source code.

I cannot believe the degree of cargo culting that goes on on this website around security.

Thank you.

`opacity: 0.996 !important;`

We can find the discussion where the extensions were born https://forum.justgetflux.com/post/10814

Looks like this is something browser vendors should incorporate? One would think that because WebKit is free and open source it should be possible to have this fix evaluated for everyone built into Safari and chrome by default.

"Bike-shedding" may be a more fitting term for what you are complaining about. Cargo-culting would be almost the opposite in my mind; e.g. people mindlessly copying a pile of magic CSS they don't understand.

Anyway, I guess I'm just another security grump, but knowing it's a single simple CSS property only makes me feel further justified that "Read and change all your data on the websites you visit" is unacceptable. I don't think that's restricted to security nerds on HN either -- there are probably would-be users who can't find a CSS file on Github and translate it into a user style, who will also not install the extension, if that's what Chome tells them it "requires." I don't know if that's purely Chrome's fault for not having an extension architecture capable of requesting less scary permissions to get this job done, or if the developer could do better too.

About the permissions, the developer said it was the minimum permission setting they had to give the extension. You can see someone replying to a user's comment on the extension's review page.

I can't say it's chrome's fault in this case. The extension is effectively acting on every single web page, even though it's just CSS.

While that's true, extensions are automatically updated, so the problem is you can't trust an extension just because right now it's just a CSS file.

You can disable the extension auto-update in Safari.

Something is definitely wrong here.

You're right about me being a security nut. But I don't think it is unwarranted to be paranoid about letting an extension have those permissions. Especially when the extension can auto update without my permission. There's no way for me to stop the extension from updating in the options.

You viewed the source code, but the extension checks for an update every couple hours and updates itself. You might trust the developer to not do anything bad, or not accidentally leak his private key for the extension. The only way to stop it from updating itself is to go to the manifest file and removing the update url.

I'm tired of the anti-security comments that come up against people commenting about bad security practices, even though they're restrictive and paranoid. This is the case when you need to be paranoid. A quick google search give me this[1]

Ever let someone's code have access to everything on every webpage, including all of your financial and personal ones you use? Well you're doing it right now. The only way I'd be okay with letting extensions access and change contents of webpages if they specify the website url they're going to access, and those are the only websites they can access (Reddit Enhancement Suite does this)

I appreciate the developer's time on this and don't mean to disparage their effort. But, how many developers are you going to keep trusting this way? You can't normalize every extension having those permissions! Read and change, not just read all websites.

You know enough to look for the source and check it out. But what about the users who don't know how to do so or can't read code? Even if they can, can they discern malicious code from harmless code? Will you say the same thing you said to me to a user with no understanding of how these things work?

I'd actually love to know how you got to the source code in three clicks. Wish it was that easy to view an extension's source other than digging through the chrome internal data folders.

And I don't think cargo culting is the correct term, or bike shedding. I'd say something to do with tin foil hats would be more appropriate.

[1]: https://arstechnica.com/security/2015/04/google-kills-200-ad...

People on here barely read past headlines and you expect them to click three times to find the source code for a browser extension?

Really? You can't believe people in a technical community, in 2017, are worried about security? That's actually hard for you to believe? That people who talk about VPNs and data breaches and Edward Snowden and Aaron Swartz, you can't believe that people here are concerned about security?

Yeah, really beggars belief, doesn't it.

Hello, I'm the author of the extension. It's ok if you don't trust it. I couldn't find any way to ask for a smaller set of permissions. To my knowledge there is no way to specify this in the manifest. (I can't ask for permission to insert a stylesheet without also having permission to inject JavaScript, even though I don't have any JavaScript.)

I'm sorry if I came off as critical of your work. I did see you commenting on the extension support page and talked about it here[1]. I was pointing out the permission model. I went into a little more detail here[2]. It's just how things are I guess.

Please don't let us security paranoid people stop you from contributing to open source software. And 6k+ users are using it with great reviews so you must already know your work is much appreciated. My gripe was about security practices, not about doubting the security of your specific extension. It is same problem with the way chrome handles all of the extensions' auto-updates.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13984773 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13984661

No offence taken. we want the same thing - for Chrome to allow fine grain permissions.

Although when I think about it, even a style sheet could be malicious to a degree (e.g. hiding important warnings, or adding misleading text)

Here's the Safari fix: https://github.com/clundie/VideoFixer

I'm not 100% sure but I believe that extension forces your computer to not use GPU video rendering, increasing your battery usage.

Thanks for the link! Been dealing with this problem for multiple years now :)

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