Chrome extension "Awesome Screenshot" messes with Google search results | Hacker News Reader

Chrome extension "Awesome Screenshot" messes with Google search results

seroundtable.com

81 pointsantimora36 comments

Btw. if somebody's looking for a good screenshot application that automatically creates a URL when you take a screenshot, I can't recommend this software enough: http://getcloudapp.com/

You can also drag files onto the icon and all kinds of stuff - there's also a keyboard shortcut to upload the contents of the clipboard to a URL.

Works well and is available on all platforms.

Edit: (ouch, harsh down-votes) Sorry, not all platforms, only OSX and Windows (AFAIK). The windows version was built by a third party on top of their API and works exactly the same way: http://fluffyapp.com/ - I use both versions daily and I'm addicted.

Re-edit:

- a beta linux client: http://abhinandh.com/post/2755166494/cloudapp-for-linux-and-...

- ipad and iphone clients: http://bluenubeapp.com/ & http://cloud2goapp.com/

- android client: http://android.appstorm.net/reviews/utilities/share-easily-w...

- wordpress plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-cloudapp/

Works on all Mac platforms.

There is a pc version built on their API that works exactly the same way: http://fluffyapp.com/

Though only really useful to those who can read code/program themselves, I find the "Extension Gallery and Web Store Inspector" extension to be useful for this kind of thing. It gives you an omnibar icon when you're viewing an extension in the Chrome Web Store/Extension gallery which let's you view the actual permissions the extension is requesting, a list of Chrome API calls it makes and you can also go in and view the actual code of the extension. I tend to do this before installing any extension.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bbamfloeabgknfklmg...

Hi All, This is Joel, developer of awesome screenshot. I am so sorry to add the amazon search result in google search result page without info our users first. It's such a bad decision.

This additional features was designed to scratch our own itch. Because when I search some shopping items in google, I always want to check them in amazon at the same time.

In the spirit of transparency, we should disclose that this feature does bring small amount of revenue to us, which enables us to continue to improve this product.

Since so many users don't like it, we already updated a new version(3.2.1) to remove this feature.

> Because when I search some shopping items in google, I always want to check them in amazon at the same time.

Seriously? You expect us to believe you maliciously hijacked user's search results and put in your own affiliate links just because you thought it would be "nice"??

>In the spirit of transparency

AKA "Now that we got caught acting against the spirit of transparency..."

>we should disclose that this feature does bring small amount of revenue to us

Yeah, no shit; but someone else already "disclosed" that.

>Since so many users don't like it, we already updated a new version(3.2.1) to remove this feature.

So what? You've demonstrated a lack of respect for the user's trust and privacy. Why should we trust a liar?

>Seriously? You expect us to believe you maliciously hijacked user's search results and put in your own affiliate links just because you thought it would be "nice"??

I just told the intension behind this feature: 1) It's from my need. 2) It can help us make small mount of money. 3) We provide an option to disable it.

I apologize for the bad decision. We should did it like this: 1) Disable it by default. 2) Ask user's permission to enable it 3) Tell users why we add it.

I did it wrong but still respect users. This feature exists only one day and I removed it the new version.

At the very, very least, you could've just marked the results you were adding in as "Awesome-Screenshot added links" or something similar.

Explicitly matching the font, styling, and layout of the google results is a pretty strong effort to disguise them as google's own.

Good of you to come out and apologise for it (and remove the hidden feature), but this kind of fails the plausible deniability test...

"I mistakenly added a feature that would show our referral links to half a million users in their search results" isn't really believable.

The intension is to make a small mount of money from the referral links while it still helps some users. However, I did it in a wrong way. Maybe we should did it like this: 1) Disable it by default. 2) Ask user's permission to enable it 3) Tell users why we add it.

I don't have your extension installed, but if I did I wouldn't have a problem with this (provided I knew about it). I understand you have to make some $$$, and really affiliate links don't hurt me at all/change my price.

This article fails to mention that the result-tampering is provided as a default-enabled option.

Here is a screenshot: http://imgur.com/7C5oM

I am not sure when though the software was updated (either to have this checkbox or something else) according to Joel (developer) http://www.seroundtable.com/google-amazon-treatment-13881.ht...

Apart from the fact that a screenshot utility - by nature - should have nothing to do with tampering Google search results, the developer of this extension could handle the situation more decently by explicitly mentioning this feature in the description page, setting the option as default-disabled and then ask the users to support the extension by enabling this option manually.

With an option like this clearly visible, might this be an acceptable way to make money with a Chrome extension? There certainly don't seem to be many options available for developers, apart from the other highly annoying way of periodically throwing the user to a "your extension has been updated!" page with ads on it.

Would've been absolutely fine if it were:

1. Disabled by default 2. Publicized properly (and not sneaked in)

Yup. I would still have happily used it. Now there is just no telling what else they may do without telling users.

Not in my opinion. I think you owe the user a clear indication about that it is an add, and from who the add comes. Just modifying pages like that is malware behavior.

If they clearly tell me it's their add then I can chose if I want the extension or not, so removable adds is less of an issue.

Just in case anyone's looking for an alternative, you can try the similiar Screen Capture by Google: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cpngackimfmofbokmj...

We used this everyday at work, but it's gone now.

But, I wonder how many people will actually notice this and remove it. Unless this creates a huge storm, I don't know how many of it's supposed half a million users will care.

Ads are Google's cash cow; they'll care.

BTW, it has to be uninstalled. Patrick Altoft notes that it still affected his search results even after disabling. http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/google-partners-with-amazon-to-sh...

And I actually was about to spread the good word about this extension to my coworkers because this extension is very useful compared to other screenshot tools because it can capture the whole page instead just the screen area.

Webpage Screenshot does full-page captures, in case you're looking for a replacement.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ckibcdccnfeookdmba...

Sorry, but 'Webpage Screenshot' is a terrible implementation (it doesn't even have a save-button!).

If you want to recommend an alternative then why not point to google's own: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cpngackimfmofbokmj...

I didn't know an official Google extension existed for this, until I scrolled further down the thread!

> it can capture the whole page instead just the screen area.

Screengrab for Firefox has been doing this for a long time now. It also allows you to select a region to capture with your mouse.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/screengrab/

The Screen Capture plugin (by Google) can do that as well: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cpngackimfmofbokmj...

It also gives you an URL for the screen shot which is really useful IMHO.

I'm guessing they added an affiliate tag to all the Amazon links so they could make some money from it, wonder how successful it has been. Is it a popular extension?

Very popular. It's got 422,340 users and 12,925 of 5 star ratings.

Here is the link to the extension:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/alelhddbbhepgpmgid...

And apparently there is a corresponding Firefox addon as well, which has 166,107 users. So in total I presume there are over 1/2 million users.

Acc. to this article (http://blog.arpitnext.com/2010/08/googles-reply-on-chrome-ex...), Google does not review add-ons by third-party devs at all.

Which makes me think we shouldn't be installing any of them.

They probably could have got away with it if they'd just added their affiliate code to Amazon links that showed up organically, they just got greedy.

That would probably be in breach of Amazon's affiliate policies though, IIRC editing other peoples links (replacing codes, or adding yours to a link that has no affiliate code) is frowned upon and a reasons to have your account closed.

As this is providing extra links rather than changing existing ones, it shouldn't be against Amazon's rules.

I'll no doubt irritate Google though as it could affect their ad revenue. I wonder if it would be possible to detect this sort of thing: implementing some sort of checksum on the content they send out and checking it with client-side script to tell the user that the page had been modified. It would flag up changes some users are expecting (from deliberately written/installed add-ons or greasemnokey scripts, and would not be able to identify the source of the change, so it wouldn't be perfect. And of course add-ins changing the page could just remove the checking code - but that would be a nice big red sign to say never trust a line of code released by this company/person again and would be an arms race (though Google probably has the resources to keep the upper hand in that).

viglink provides an API that automatically adds affiliate links to your page or software product and it supports Amazon

That is adding your affiliate code to your links to Amazon, not links created by anyone else, so should be in accordance with the rules.

Do people really install an extension with the fabolous name of "Awesome Screenshot"? It already sounds like spam and/or at least trojan software.

Edit: This post is not trolling. I really often got the recommendation to install that plugin but always didn't because I already thought it can't be good, after reading the name and surfing the web for some years. I mean everybody here knows spam emails and these trojans many people had on their machinese 10 years ago, right?

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