Hacker News Reader

Still works on Chrome 150, but it is the last supported version. Chrome 151 is being released on July 28.

qiloon Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as Protection

You can't install anything without an Apple account. Just tried installing altstore.io to repeat my previous unsuccessful attempt.

Only users based in Brazil, Japan, or the European Union are able to install apps through alternative app distribution. The country or region of your *Apple Account* must be set to one of those countries or regions, and you must physically be located there. [0]

UPDATE: Also tried to install onside.io. No luck. The same popup:

Cannot Install App: You are not eligible to install apps from "onside.io".

[0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/117767 https://support.apple.com/en-us/118110

qiloon Identity verification on Claude

Hold on a second... didn't you literally hand over a verified phone number when you signed up? Please tell me you used a burner SIM for that!

qiloon Chrome is looking to permanently drop MV2 extension

It is a "kill switch" - uBlock Origin will no longer work in Chrome 151 (July 28, 2026).

qiloon LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

Surprisingly full uBO still works on Chrome 146 if launched with the argument

    --disable-features=ExtensionManifestV2Unsupported

qiloon Wired headphone sales are exploding

I found this confusing as well. She probably meant to "Forget" the device when the Bluetooth pairing with the headphones is lost.

qiloon Unifi Travel Router

Hehe. Bought TP LINK TL-WR1043ND (one of the first models of affordable home routers with integrated gigabit switch) in 2012 for $40 (maybe $50, but not more), flashed OpenWrt and still using to this day.

qiloon We replaced H.264 streaming with JPEG screenshots (and it worked better)

For mostly static content like screencasts by dropping duplicate frames and producing variable framerate h.264 yuv444 videos with lossless encoding I was getting <100 kbps files for 1024x768 resolution more than a decade ago.

qiloon Tell HN: Beware of the fake uBlock Origin in Chrome Web Store

Someone has hijacked the name "uBlock Origin" (for an extension) in the Chrome Web Store. When you search for "uBlock Origin", you’re shown a fake extension (1,000 users) with a "Featured" badge instead of the real one (17,000,000 users) at https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ublock-origin/cjpal...

qiloon Someone at YouTube Needs Glasses: The Prophecy Has Been Fulfilled

> There are already zero videos if you visit with no youtube history [...]

since August 2023 [0]

[0] https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/139222780?hl=en&ms...

qiloon A theoretical way to circumvent Android developer verification

Even with fair usage policy violations (like long term roaming) the prices are still quite reasonable: 1.30 EUR/GiB (+VAT); from next year 1.10 EUR/GiB (+VAT).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_roaming_regulat...

qiloon As Android developer verification gets ready to go, a new reason to be worried

Aurora Store[0] is an alternative FOSS frontend to Google Play, in which you can install/update apps without any account.

[0] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.store/

qiloon YouTube addresses lower view counts which seem to be caused by ad blockers

Trending page[0] is gone for non logged-in users as of couple months now. (No idea if it's still up for logged-in users) As a result my YouTube consumption went down (not complaining).

https://www.youtube.com/feed/trending

qiloon uBlock Origin still works in Chrome 139

With 138, I reconfigured Chrome to force Manifest v2 to continue working.

How did you forced?

qiloon uBlock Origin still works in Chrome 139

It's not working for me anymore, after upgrade to 139.

chrome://policy/ shows policy status error:

  Policy name                        Policy value    Source      Applies to    Level        Status

  ExtensionManifestV2Availability    2               Platform    Machine       Mandatory    Error
                            Value    2
                            Error    Unknown policy.

Update: Add these options to the chrome executable to make it work again:

  --enable-features=AllowLegacyMV2Extensions,UnexpireFlagsM136,UnexpireFlagsM137 --disable-features=ExtensionManifestV2Unsupported

Actually, these are enough:

  --enable-features=AllowLegacyMV2Extensions --disable-features=ExtensionManifestV2Unsupported

qiloon Stop selling “unlimited”, when you mean “until we change our minds”

By clicking, he expected to see the full price with VAT included, as required by EU regulations, without doing the math himself.

qiloon Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update

Mozilla sells user data to third parties. Their statement:

The reason we’ve stepped away from making blanket claims that “We never sell your data” is because, in some places, the LEGAL definition of “sale of data” is broad and evolving. As an example, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) defines “sale” as the “selling, renting, releasing, disclosing, disseminating, making available, transferring, or otherwise communicating orally, in writing, or by electronic or other means, a consumer’s personal information by [a] business to another business or a third party” in exchange for “monetary” or “other valuable consideration.”

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43213612

qiloon A Dark Adtech Empire Fed by Fake CAPTCHAs

Firefox Focus is available on App Store. You don't have to use it (I don't), but set it as a content blocker in Safari settings.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/safari-integration-fire...

The only other extension I’ve started using recently, when the quantity/frequency of YouTube ads on Safari became unbearable, is 1Blocker. It includes a specific filter for blocking YouTube ads, and you can use one active filter for free without subscription.

https://support.1blocker.com/en/articles/9313640-how-to-bloc...

qiloon Self-hosting your own media considered harmful according to YouTube

I purposefully avoid demonstrating any of the tools (with a suffix that rhymes with "car") that are popularly used to circumvent purchasing movie, TV, and other media content, or any tools that automatically slurp up YouTube content.

Can't figure out what tool Jeff is writing about.

qiloon We’ll be ending web hosting for your apps on Glitch

. (dot) got truncated

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitch,_Inc%2E

qiloon Ghost students are creating problems for California colleges

Fingerprints are only stored on the chip. Collection/retainment for other purposes is against the law.

qiloon A liar who always lies says "All my hats are green."

If liar is lying so the not false statement can also be: "Not all not my not hats are not not green".

qiloon I spent a year building an Android course for the elderly

Is there any course about Android "administration"? I mean there are plenty of content on Linux/Windows administration (not programming): partitions, file systems, bootloaders, boot sequence, kernels, init(ialization), processes, shells, users, configuration, application installation and execution, logging, security, etc. How all of the components fit together, what interacts with what, and so on.

When I first got my phone was looking for an Android course which would explain all the above concepts (and more, like what is launcher, how notifications work, what other APIs there are, location, camera, microphone, etc.). But didn't find anything, only found courses/books about application development in Java/Kotlin. I have no interest in Android programming, just want to know how it works.

qiloon ChatGPT Search

Here's what ChatGPT 4o mini (free) answered to me to the same question:

No, Paul Edwin Zimmer did not write a fourth novel in the Dark Border series. The trilogy consists of "The Dark Border," "The Dark Border: The Return," and "The Dark Border: The Reckoning." After these, he focused on other projects and did not continue the series.

qiloon Bug, $50k how Zendesk left a backdoor in Fortune 500 companies

My understanding is that, the original sender (spoofed apple in this case) can send the reply to support-$ticket-$id@ with CC field to grant full access to the thread for CC'ed email.

qiloon Keyhole – Forge own Windows Store licenses

Massgrave's tools activate your licence with Microsoft's servers.

qiloon Telephone Line Rural Outside Plant

"Neighbouring Finland offered an analogue telephone exchange as a gift and the Estonian government declined, [...]"

In 1997 even to think about an "upgrade" to an analogue system is a negligence. Estonia already had 3 GSM networks in a country with a population of 1,400,000.

At the time [May 1997] of Ritabell's entering the Estonian market, there were about 64,500 GSM subscribers in the country. 53,000 belonged to EMT and 11,500 to Radiolinja, [...] [0]

EMT (Eesti Mobiiltelefon) claims even bigger numbers:

By 1996, EMT had 100,000 subscribers. [1]

[0] https://books.google.lt/books?id=SrFXo6qDRjcC&pg=PA152

[1] https://www.telia.ee/en/uudised/celebrating-25-years-of-mobi...

qiloon They don't make 'em like that any more: the 3.5mm headphone jack socket

Just the tip is 3.2 mm. Ring and sleeve are 3.5 mm.

qiloon Did pizza exist in the Soviet Union?

Was it before 1988? (before the Law on Cooperatives was implemented, which allowed the creation of privately owned enterprises)