AnyTracker: Track any number on any website | Hacker News Reader

AnyTracker: Track any number on any website

anytracker.org

44 pointsdev_at28 comments

Interesting! Is this using the local device to scrape or a remote server process?

Thanks! It is using the local device.

It doesn't work on a site I tried, and I'm interested in premium. Do you fix websites for premium users?

Yes, let me know by sending me an email. Also, make sure to test the search button in the different modes if you haven't already.

For those who want to self-host - https://github.com/dgtlmoon/changedetection.io/

Does this use scraping? Trying to understand how it works

Yes, it uses scraping. The algorithms used are very general in order to make it work on any website.

Yeah it’s interesting that you’ve got it to work on any website… well done

Thank you!

url + xpath works anywhere

Until the path changes...

Yep, that’s a challenge! But the impressiveness is in solving that, not in getting it to work on every website.

"The only limitation is your imagination." - The new Zombo.com

Had to check the website. It did not dissapoint

Tell us about your stack

100% Kotlin on the Android side and pretty close to 100% SwiftUI on the iOS side. So two native apps.

Why is this flagged?

I consider this spam: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38417196

How is that spam?

I think you should at least have preceded the title of the original post with a "Show HN: ".

In your comment advertising your sale, you should've added a disclaimer saying that you're directly profiting from it, or at least made it clear that it is your product. Just my opinion though.

Thanks for getting back to me. Will follow your advice if I do something similar in the future.

Does it understand dates?

Yes, is there something in particular you want to track? Text tracking would probably be best suited for this.

It was just an idea.

Anecdote time: A few years ago I had too register for a ceremony in the university. They had few slots, and the date was a random day of the month announced in an obscure web page updated randomly. So the solution was to go every few days to look if the new one has been announced and try to register soon enough.

So I think tracking a date may be useful. It's more complicated because there are like a million of formats, dd/mm/yy, mm/dd/yy, MMMM dd, dd MMM, .... so it's not easy to support.

In my case, probably "something changed" was enough. But I guess in other case the announcement page my have a few independent parts that change for other reasons.

Interesting, thanks for sharing! If the exact field was updated, text tracking would be sufficient. I also plan to add a mode that is as simple as "something changed", which will let you know when anything about the page is updated. I worry that may cause a lot of notifications though.

Perfect for price tracking and other graphing purposes. Text tracking is also supported. And hey - Lifetime Premium is 50% off until Sunday evening.

Are you the sole support of this app, and if so what's your life expectancy? I'd just like to evaluate this lifetime offer. Age? Do you smoke or vape? Skydive? What's your BMI? Could you post your medical history?

Haha, yes I am. 24 years old, no smoking or drinking. Almost never skydive. BMI of 23. On a serious note, I have been updating the app every week since it was released two years ago.

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