mfrisbie

6 ms·

1.
by mfrisbie 8mo ago
https://mattfriz.com
2.
Everyone Should Sideload More Browser Extensions(mattfrisbie.substack.com)
3 points by mfrisbie 11mo ago|0 comments
3.
by mfrisbie 1y ago
So this extension is feeding a stream of your browsing activity to a bunch of third party services? No thanks.
4.
by mfrisbie 2y ago
Looks nice, but that extension is a high-value acquisition target for bad actors, and there's nothing but an email for contact information. Sideloading eliminates this risk completely.
5.
by mfrisbie 2y ago
I kept catching myself scrolling down their idiotic feed and wondering what the hell I was doing. Mindless dreck, all of it. Yet I still get cold inbound from it that turns into business, so I can't just abandon the platform entirely.
6.
by mfrisbie 2y ago
Some charge a nominal fee, and one I had to travel to a studio to record. Made for a nice weekend in LA with my wife.
7.
by mfrisbie 2y ago
I run Track & Trace Tools[1], an extension directly targeted at the legal cannabis industry's main compliance platform Metrc. Since it's targeted at businesses and not consumers, word of mouth has been powerful for me. I'
8.
by mfrisbie 3y ago
I tried very hard to find a way around using an external server, as I knew HN would harp on the related privacy issues. No luck.
9.
by mfrisbie 3y ago
I'll admit, the launch messaging could have been better.
10.
by mfrisbie 3y ago
For the record, this is bang on.
11.
by mfrisbie 3y ago
Creator here - you bet! It's a big problem.
12.
by mfrisbie 3y ago
Creator here. A check automatically runs every hour, and if there are any changes detected, a badge appears over the extension icon. I decided anything more than that was too invasive.
13.
by mfrisbie 3y ago
Creator here. It does self-detect (chrome.management.getAll() returns all installed extensions), but fair point.
14.
by mfrisbie 3y ago
I've been self-employed for nearly two years. I work on a Chrome extension [1] that is used by a significant fraction of the US legal cannabis industry for compliance. 2/3 of my time is spent on consulting projects, which pay bett
15.
by mfrisbie 3y ago
A big factor in my industry was scanning damaged barcodes, which was frequent since they're attached to indoor/outdoor plants and physical boxes that get moved around. They get weathered and scraped. If there's even slight da
16.
by mfrisbie 3y ago
Native apps use Android/iOS scanning libraries that are much more effective than the in-browser options. They are still nowhere near as good as hardware scanners.
17.
by mfrisbie 3y ago
The initial idea involved a low-friction onboarding that didn't require any extra hardware - "Just use your phone to scan!". Stupid. Turns out that workers would rather manually key in the last 5 numbers of a barcode to look
18.
by mfrisbie 3y ago
Resolution is certainly a major factor in the scanning acuity. The browser scanning issue is somewhat paradoxical: getting a clear and high-resolution image of the barcode improves scan accuracy, but to achieve this, the camera needs to get
19.
by mfrisbie 3y ago
QR codes are very easy to scan in-browser, but 1D barcodes are significantly more challenging. ~75% of the cannabis industry deals with Metrc, which forces companies to place 1D Code-128 barcode tags on everything they grow or manufacture.
20.
by mfrisbie 3y ago
ChatGPT for Google was #1 on HN earlier this year. Check out the GitHub repo now: that person sold the extension. I had a small side project extension, ~25,000 installs & free to use. I got enough inbound interest trying to "help m
21.
by mfrisbie 3y ago
My favorite Metrc API wart was submitting harvests when their API servers were bogged down. Sometimes, your "create harvest" request would get stuck in a transaction pool that wouldn't timeout for 10 minutes. You'd have
22.
by mfrisbie 3y ago
Up until very recently there was plenty of federal support for tobacco farmers, and you can't eat that either. If states are going to legalize and tax, then they're obligated to treat these businesses as legitimate - especially wi
23.
by mfrisbie 3y ago
I was on Cannabis Talk 101 recently to talk about this issue specifically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwOmtBo8sBU It is not hyperbolic to say that in many states, the cannabis industry is drowning. Far too much regulat
24.
by mfrisbie 4y ago
It's very bizarre, and possibly why it got kicked off the front page
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by mfrisbie 4y ago
High praise indeed! Thank you.
26.
by mfrisbie 4y ago
Fair point, multiple people have circled this snippet as problematic. I'll confess, I didn't spend much time testing this for performance. My idea was that separate inputs should have separate debounced handlers, but it's lik
27.
by mfrisbie 4y ago
Author here! I'm tickled to see that this whimsical cautionary tale is so resonant.
28.
by mfrisbie 4y ago
https://www.trackandtrace.tools/ Open source Chrome extension for Metrc, the primary cannabis track and trace platform in the US. It's free to use, but I'm proud to say that a significant slice of the cannabis ind
29.
by mfrisbie 4y ago
Safari's extension support is great, I was keen to include that in the book. Having to develop extensions inside XCode and deploy them in the Apple App store felt a bit odd, but it's really interesting how the extension has a dedi
30.
by mfrisbie 4y ago
I'm a faithful Firefox Mobile user myself, it's the easiest way to use an adblocker on a mobile device. I don't think it's controversial to suggest that extensions are a desktop-first platform: things like popups, omnibo

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