Are you on Facebook? Check out MyPermissions | Hacker News Reader

Are you on Facebook? Check out MyPermissions

thenextweb.com

35 pointsbenjlang23 comments

What does this do for me that https://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=applications does not? Other than ironically nag me to share on social media and sign up for their newsletter for every app I drop?

I thought the ironic sharing on social media and reward system was a nice touch ;-)

Seriously though, I think the value add is that it can send you alerts when permissions change, or just nag you to clean up the permissions -- sounds like useful nagging. I don't see Facebook making any attempt to help me reduce the number of apps/permissions.

Give you the ability to see what kind of access you've granted which application, and the option to 'nuke' (i.e. disconnect) all apps in one go. The alerts as mentioned below as well.

I think the mobile version is the main feature. Accessing many facebook settings from your phone is a challenge.

That's a great tool. I hadn't realized that every time when I was "sharing with Facebook", or "commenting with Facebook" I was actually installing all kinds of Facebook apps that would have long term ability to post as me.

Facebook needs to have some more tinfoil had granularity for some of that stuff. I'd be fine with allowing some of those apps some of their crazy permissions if I had to authorize it every time.

And wow, do app designers ever need to start doing a better job of naming their apps. The Pizza Pizza Canada app was uatpizza or something dumb like that.

There was something like this a few years ago. Facebook changed something (and/or FB changes made maintaining the plugin impossible) and it stopped working. Like any business idea dependent on the goodwill of an API to third-parties, a conflict with business priorities will always resolve in the API owner's favor.

I think most people would be more likely to click this if it didn't say "Seriously, just do it."

Good call, fixed

Looks good though! I'll give it a go later

Wow! This is really neat and useful. Thanks for making this (if you created it, OP)!

There was quite a few apps that I had forgotten I had given access too, that I revoked permissions. I also really love how it is a Chrome extension instead of yet another app I would have to give full access to, just to delete access for other apps (that would seem just plain silly haha). It makes me feel much safer using it. Great job! :)

Direct link for those that do not want to read the article: http://mypermissions.org/*

Link to get chrome extension: https://mypermissions.com/?utm_source=org_promotions_cleaner...

FYI: "This extension can access: Your data on all websites Your tabs and browsing activity"

I really like the report that's generated, but it took me about 4 attempted scans before one finished. I'll be patient because I'm interested in this, but I don't think most people on the internet will be as patient.

Anyway, great start and looking forward to seeing it improve!

Great wep app, it scanned and removed the applications without requiring sign up, providing email address, etc.

That is the key step so many things online mess up - let me try it out w/o having to create another user account!

I go to the page and it shows "Sign in to Facebook to scan your permissions", I am however signed in, clicking the link takes me to my Facebook feed. Does anyone else have this problem? Chrome on W7.

Yes and after a second it should redirect you back to MyPermissions.

No redirect after, just sitting looking at my news feed.

Shouldn't the platform owner (e.g. Facebook) make sure that no intrusive apps can connect in the first place?

Well, they're defining "intrusive" to include things that Facebook supports on purpose, so they have different opinions about what should be permitted on the platform. For example, this scanner considers apps that have permission to post in your name as intrusive, while Facebook not only allows that, but even spent time implementing that functionality.

As far as I know, there are a lot of Facebook apps that ask for more privileges than they need. The question is, why doesn't facebook look at the app, its requested privileges and reject them if they ask for too much? This would prevent the most egregious problems, and make MyPermissions unnecessary.

Where do you draw the line at intrusive? A lot of the apps in my list fell into the category "used once, forgot it was installed." I don't think it's necessarily intrusive, but I removed a bunch of them none-the-less; I just don't want them to have permission _anymore_.

A great feature from Facebook would be time-limited access; i.e. Quora can access my Facebook info for 24 hours and then all permissions are revoked. Although, unless the app is using long-lived access tokens, they can only access your FB info for a few hours after an active session -- so if you haven't logged in recently, the app can't grab your data.

> Shouldn't the platform owner (e.g. Facebook) make sure that no intrusive apps can connect in the first place?

When "intrusive" conflicts with "making money", guess which one wins?

But seriously: Haven't found an app that was worth a damn to enable in the first place.

I like the analogy. There is anti-virus for security, but there should be an equivalent for privacy.

How does an app get on the "MyPermissions' Safe Permissions Program" list? Where is this list?

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