Obfuscate
Security and privacy
browser extension for screenshot redaction
SHOW HN2022
How HN took it
6 positive, 21 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 14 critical, out of 42 comments about the project. Thread score -0.15.
Privacy: 1 for, 7 againstIdea: 4 for, 1 againstExecution: 0 for, 5 againstDocs: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Useful for quick redacted screenshots and mockups
From 2 comments
Thanks for making this, it's super cool! I sometimes don't ask for help because the act of blacking out a screenshot is too onerous, I will bookmark this!! For anyone navigating…
dontbenebby on HNThis could potentially save me some screenshot editing
kristianpaul on HN
Requires no permissions
From 1 comment
Great to see that this extension doesn't require any permissions. Good job!
mr_pinnen on HN
Objections
Text length leaks information; random lengths suggested
From 2 comments
Nice idea! Looks like spaces are preserved, and the bar lengths seem to match the world length. Is that the case? I didn't measure it precisely and didn't check the source code.…
progbits on HNAnyone who has the time and means to reconstruct/deduce the words on your obfuscated screenshot based on the length of the blocks that this extension produces, will very likely…
leokennis on HN
Blur for images is reversible
From 1 comment
Obfuscation with blur is trivial to reverse these days. Always block out leaving no pixels with which to reconstruct. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4679801…
tekchip on HN
Not usable for non-Latin scripts like Arabic and Chinese
From 2 comments
It doesn't work for arabic text.
mfcc64 on HNOr for Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, Greek, Ethiopic, Thai, Korean, etc., etc. ... basically, for any text that uses characters other than the Latin and Cyrillic character sets that…
jfk13 on HN
Requests
Deobfuscate or exclude selected parts of page
From 2 comments
This is really nice! May I suggest an option to "deobfuscate" certain parts of the web page? For example, after you obfuscate the page with alt+shift+O, then you could click on…
angelaguilera on HNCool, would be greater if it doesn't obfuscate selected text, so one can show part of text and not the other.
zouhair on HN
Regex-based obfuscation of matching text
From 2 comments
This is really neat! A suggestion, consider a user option to obfuscate what matches either a regex string, or more simply configurable options (e.g. obfuscate just numbers,…
seltzered_ on HNBeing able to replace via regex or similar would be pretty killer for a lot of streamers who want to guarantee personal info or even usernames never appear on-screen in a browser.
KennyBlanken on HN
Chrome support
From 1 comment
No chrome?
Komodai on HN
Lorem ipsum replacement mode
From 1 comment
Agree with the randomizing of word length. How about also having a choice in obfuscation mode? ``` * Government Mode - Solid black bars so it looks like everything has been…
matt_heimer on HN
Questions
Is the extension safe given Mozilla does not monitor it for security?
From 1 comment
The add-on page says: "This add-on is not actively monitored for security by Mozilla. Make sure you trust it before installing." As things stand today, gaining my trust would…
Rygian on HN
Alternatives named
Redacted font or bookmarklet
From 2 comments
Another option for this is to use a “redacted” font like https://github.com/christiannaths/redacted-font I can't find it ATM, but I used to have a bookmarklet that added one of…
dspillett on HNI have quite similar bookrmarklet that actually walks whole DOM and scrambles text nodes and attributes: [1] ([2] for convenient installation) I've picked 'medium shade (U+2592)'…
myfonj on HN
Userscript Redactor
From 1 comment
See also the userscript I posted in that thread 4 days ago, https://github.com/easrng/redactor. It redacts your selection though, not the whole page.
easrng on HN
Flameshot screenshot app
From 1 comment
For when I want to obfuscate just a few things, I use Flameshot (the screenshot app)
Vladimof on HN