Google Chrome and my recommended Addons...

What other productivity software are you working with...
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Acecool
Posts: 43
Joined: 25 May 2016 11:13

Google Chrome and my recommended Addons...

Post by Acecool »

There are a few addons I use on a regular basis that really help control the flow of data, ads, cosmetic and annoying js site-issues, tv show tracking, and memory management, plus others...

Personal Blacklist by Google - lets you permanently remove trash sites or search-engine trap sites ( that are dead domains that only have ads or a search engine with links for you to click but no real content ) from appearing in your list again...

OneTab - Reading list / temporary bookmark system which lets you free up memory on tabs you've opened but may not get to soon... You can prevent duplicates in the list, right click to have options to only send the tabs from left or right of current tab to the list ( removes the tabs and adds to list ), or click the button and move them all to the list... Very helpful!!

uMatrix - Personal data whitelist / blacklist... Basically if you visit example.com then all of example.com is available to be used on that site... If example.com tries to pull scripts, images, or include frames, plugs etc... from any other site ( note some sites do use content hosts, or have different urls for data like google, facebook, and others ) then it is, by default, blocked... Sites will likely appear weird the first time you install this... You can globally allow some sites, globally block, or allow only for one site.. For example you may want facebook.com to have access to their content server but not allow other sites to access it, by default you just click the green / red square icon ( changes based on allowed vs blocked data ) then click the top half of the line to set it to allowed / green, bottom half for blocked / red.. You can use the individual blocks for only allowing specific data but if you want EVERYTHING you need to green-mark the beginning of the line, AND the frame block as that is always set as separate...

To allow something globally, set the options in the list, then right click the icon > options > My Rules.. Remove the first domain at the start, and use a *... so, if you set example.com to allow everything from facebook.com it'd look like this:

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example.com facebook.com * allow
example.com facebook.com frame allow
to allow everywhere, you want it to look like this

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* facebook.com * allow
* facebookcom frame allow
Before you close your browser, you will need to commit all changes under My Rules for these changes to stick ( don't forget to refresh the page when you change anything using the icon list, and always Commit [ on the right side which moves the data to the list on the left which is the permanent / stored configuration data ] after you edit the list box itself )...

It gives you a lot of control over the content you can see, but it can break some sites... For example, a lot of sites use the Google Captcha box ( Click the square if not a robot, optional a phrase to type comes up or a click trees / streets / etc.. image selection comes up ) and if you don't allow the domain / scripts for that on the site, you won't be able to log-in or do anything else... It isn't necessarily meant for non-technical types but I've told my friends about it and they use it and they like it because they don't get nags for facebook and twitter on every site anymore, etc....

Tampermonkey - Used to inject or rewrite Javascript on sites... I use this to automatically redirect me through sites that have a "click in x seconds" by either bypassing the timer ( if the site is poorly coded by not storing the page-load time on the server for the user ), but, most importantly, I use it to prevent all of the ad pop-ups and pop-unders from opening by rewriting the variables and functions that house them.. Technical use really but it does also have a script database which can be searched so it is useful...

Stylish - Lets you change CSS for websites ( works in real-time ) so you can fix issues, or make changes you don't like... I use it to remove certain "dumb" features from sites such as... some forums require you to hover-over each and every post to see their posted-date, reply, edit, etc.. buttons and other info... I simply set the styles to visible at all times ( adding !important before the ; will ensure you overwrite that field if it isn't changing on the site )... I also make changes to ui when it seems to wacky ( sometimes requires both TamperMonkey to inject actual data such as buttons / fields to the site and Stylish to change css / how it all looks )..

Adblock Plus - I do agree in supporting websites, web-developers, developers, etc.. as I am one myself.. But many sites use outside ad services ( or seizure-inducing / annoying ads which start with noise or flash so you can't focus on the content ), or don't pay attention to what they add, or just add garbage... By using an outside ad service, they're opening themselves up to cross-site scripting attacks ( many many many sites have this issue ) which opens you up to drive-by downloads ( an ad code that displays the ad can have much more data stored and can output other info... For example using .htaccess you can redirect example.com/image.png to a php file, which can then generate an image but also record your data, the site you're on, and a lot of other data )...

Drive-by download script writers are smart making it next to impossible to know where it came from ( it is a download the isn't consensual that either starts but asks permission with a proper dialog, starts and used a "do you want to scan your pc" type of dialog or "do you want to leave this page" to start the download, or it simply starts and downloads and executes without you knowing ) and the way they make it nearly untraceable is by writing their script ( which would be remotely included so it wouldn't reside on the website that is hosting the ads, and the data is sent to the client instead of routed through the website it most cases ) that tracks ips and associates with browser name, operating system, etc... so unique users are identified ( even those sharing ips ) based on all of the data they collect.. Randomly they'll inject the drive-by code, but they may only ever do it once per unique user which is why it is hard to track and never closely together if they try again...

Adblock plus is a resource hog ( I use a hosts file, plus adblock plus, plus uMatrix, plus Tampermonkey, etc... all together to prevent bad code from running.. it isn't guaranteed and new things come out every day so it is essentially impossible to be 100% immune ) but is necessary...

TV Watchlist - If you watch tv online, or if you just want data on sites or a way to track episodes you've seen vs not seen and to be notified of new episodes then this is for you.. It also supports bookmarklets ( javascript / dynamic-bookmark so you can alter the data about the show into data so you can open the show / episode to your favorite site instead of using the default site...

This is my bookmarklet layout ( available in Right click icon > Settings ) with some data redacted, but some intact to show you how you can set it up to work for you... Setting up a numerical id based on this isn't the same, the sites I use actually use the title in the link which makes it easier... I do remove leading 0s from the episode and season number because one sites doesn't care while the other does... I have 2 listed so if one is down I comment the line and use the other / just swap them...

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javascript:(
	function( _name, _season, _episode )
	{
		/* Presets... */
		var WATCH1	= "http://www.example.com/episode/";
		var WATCH2	= "http://example.net/episodes/";

		/* Configuration... */
		var _url		= WATCH1;
		var _extension	= ".html";
		var _debug		= !true;


		/* Remove 0s from 01-09 - this site does care about this - this could be set up to use a table based system which would look nice but you need to remember that with bookmarklets, it is all parsed like it is on 1 line so normal comments don't work, you need to use multi-line / block comments because there is a start and end so the rest of the code can continue parsing */
		if ( _url == WATCH2 )
		{
			_season = _season.replace( /^_s0/ig, "_s" );
			_episode = _episode.replace( /^_e0/ig, "_e" );
		}


		/* If the episode doesn't exist ( ie special ) then set it as 0... - prevents 404 error if _enull is the episode... specials don't have an id so it might be 0 or 1 or whatever depending on the site  */
		_episode = ( _episode == "_enull" ) ? "_e0": _episode;


		/* Replace ,s and :s with nothing and spaces .s -s and ?s with underscores - special characters to be replaced, some have a \ before it to "escape" a special meaning or action the character normally does in these regular expression patterns.. */
		_name = _name.replace( /'|,|:/ig, "" );
		_name = _name.replace( / |%20|\.|\-|\?/ig, "_" );


		/* Global Removals - Sometimes things need to be completely removed from all names */
		_name = _name.replace( /this_is_the_show_blah_blah_blah_/ig, "" );


		/* Specific names that need to be corrected - some shows need parts removed, underscores added or removed, or something that are easier to simplify by writing out */
		_name = _name.replace( /^theexample_8/ig, "the_example8" );
		_name = _name.replace( /^the_example7/ig, "the_example_7" );


		/* Shows that need a the_ prefixed... the | or is not necessary.. the ()s aren't either if it is just 1 name BUT because we use a $<number_captured> var, the data inside () is captured so it can be regurgitated, and I like to set it up to make it easy to add / change shows so that I don't need to write the show name more than once either..*/
		_name = _name.replace( /^(example6)/ig, "the_$1" );


		/* Specific shows that also have a date in the title so example_2016_ or example2_2016_ -- some names on this site have trailing _s or missing, etc.. while some dates are in ()s etc.. the | inside ( )s means or, so if the name is example then it changes it to example_2016_ -- at the end var _fullname puts all of the pieces together... */
		_name = _name.replace( /^(example|example2)/ig, "$1_2016_" );
		_name = _name.replace( /^(example3|example4|example5)/ig, "$1_(2013)" );


		/* Concatenate the full-name so double-underscores can be replaced by a single-underscore */
		var _fullname	= _name + _season + _episode + _extension;
		/*_fullname = _fullname.replace( /__/ig, "_" );*/


		/* Debugging, if necessary, so we know where we're being redirected to to ensure the url is correct... Add a ! or remove a ! from _debug to enable... */
		if ( _debug )
			alert( _url + _fullname );


		/* Finally, open the link */
		open( _url + _fullname, "_self" ).focus( );
	}

	/* Because it's on 1 line, and because it acts as a function, the ending () means we're calling a function.. the 3 sets of data inside "s and separated by a , is the data the app gives us to work with... I pre-lay it out here.. it could be done inside the actual function under config / presets or whatever, but it removes a few lines by simply putting it here... */   
)( "{show_name}", "_s{season}", "_e{number}" );



Other addons I use are Google Hangouts ( for phone, etc.. support ), Chrome web-store launcher, Trello and Tello Bug tracker, Github and Bitbucket watchers for projects I've posted or watch or work on, rss feed reader, etc... the basics.. The above are the primary absolutely NEED to have in my opinion ( except the tv one but it's nice to know if you've seen an episode or not for your favorite shows, and the ability to have a direct link to watch it on your favorite site such as hulu, redbox and other paid or free tv sites, or sites provided by your internet / cable or satellite provider, and also being able to alter that link via JavaScript is a nice addition to that addon ( I don't like that other addons such as Stylish can't access the settings page because the settings / bookmarklet box is way to small by default )..

Hopefully this helps someone...

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