The only way The Onion could improve on this is by writing a followup article saying that the response has been so positive that they've decided to sell fartscroll.js as a SAAS offering, and have taken investment from twenty prominent VC funds.
Oh sorry I missed all the questions/replies for this.
I have my own firefox extension which I hacked up from an abandoned old firefox extension (called "soundextension" by Torisugari) not suitable for release, but there is a more modern extension here which does most of the same:
I vaguely remember I also had to edit the sound files to cut the volume way down, so my PC sound could be at normal levels while the clicks were much more subtle in the background.
Once your brain is trained as to which click means what, you get a good sense of what a page is doing, sneakily or otherwise. Won't work with websockets though.
I run Ghostery to stop sites from loading external media. If you're not opposed to plugins, even if you don't actually want to block the media, you can put it into disabled mode and it'll still tell you how many external calls were made (and, if you click on the icon, it brings up a list of the associated domains).
Granted, I'm running Chromium (presumably you're talking about Firefox), but the plugin does exist for both browsers.
I've always felt ghostery is the poor-man's noscript. If he wants to know about all external calls (which he presumably does) then noscript will actually do that while ghostery will let 'good' ones by untouched.
I use RequestPolicy[1] to prevent cross-site requests. If only NoScript is used and a user has allowed javascript on a domain, then NoScript allows cross-site requests and javascript from that domain to run on any domain.
I've read up on AdBlock, NoScript, Ghostery. I have no idea what differentiate's them. Some people run two or more. I have no idea if more means better.
I don't have the gumption to splunk the code.
I kinda wish either they'd declare each other competitors or embrace each other as compliments.
AdBlock blocks ads, Ghostery blocks "trackers", and NoScript blocks all JavaScript (and a few other dangerous potentials). NoScript doesn't necessarily block ads but it does block "trackers" by default.
I used Ghostery for a while but found it redundant and onerous since I also run NoScript. I agree with the parent that said Ghostery was a poor man's NoScript, though Ghostery only blocks known trackers (analytics tools) and will let random evil scripts through. NoScript allows you to whitelist script sources by domain, so you usually see "Enable example.com; Enable analytics.google.com; Enable quantcast.com;", etc., and you can just enable example.com if you don't like the trackers.
NoScript is really important and useful I think. Less convinced on Ghostery. AdBlock is useful but I don't know if I'd call it "important" really; it provides a great visual convenience to be able to read sites without being bombarded by ads, but one can live safely without it if necessary.
Good summary!
And just shows how much current web "stinks". There's a bunch of tools that advanced users can use to make the web experience more or less safe and tolerable. But I suspect (and sorry, I don't have any source to back up my suspicions) that the majority of the users have no idea that they are being tracked and targeted by bunch of nasty scripts, and more importantly how to fight against this.
Makes one think that tools like Ghostery and NoScript should be built into the browsers and enabled by default.
I think they do compliment each other. Both Ghostery and Adblock come with something NoScript doesn't have by design: A wide array of predefined filters (for trackers and ads, respectively).
However, NoScript is still very useful for (imho) two things: disabling extra functionality that you don't use in exchange for faster loading time, and for browsing on potentially dangerous websites.
AdBlock: Blocks requests with a url match in the filter list.
NoScript: Blocks JavaScript.
Ghostery: Blocks webbugs (JavaScript and hidden tracking elements, such as small/transparent images).
AdBlock appears to be the simplest, and NoScript the most complex (e.g., ABE).
Oh yes, the suspense and rollercoaster thrill of the "watching a person type a 2100 character string" setup would just make the "listen to a half-second fart noise" that much more amazing.
Well, I once attended a party where a guy typed a 128 bytes program in binary form (using ALT + number) in edit, run it in DOS and the thing did what was expected. That was amazing and totally worth the wait :)
Is there a way to make anyone accessing my home wifi network get this injected into their webpages (or random webpages)? I know there is that trick that lets you flip all the images or replace them with pics of something else (usually cats) but can you inject arbitrary js into pages also?
I originally read the link as "The Onion releases FASTscroll.js". I thought maybe there was a new high performance infinite scroll implementation. I was a little confused initially after clicking through.
It's just a demographics joke. I hope you are still amused by flatulence past the ripe old age of 34... even if you do cause a world-rending paradox, you selfish bastard.
Jokes aside, I see this extension being used in one of those "causes" pages (not that I am against them) that parody the wrongdoings of an individual or groups of individual.
e.g. a site that features an oil company, who lobbies governments to give them tax subsidies for sketchy oil drilling projects. As the user scrolls through each bad points about the oil company, a fart sound is played.
After playing with this for about 3 seconds I realized this would be perfect for a ticking timebomb. The use case: You configure your freelance/consultation web app to start injecting this script 1 month after an invoice is due and not paid. I would bet the clients will be hurrying to pay your invoice after they get complaints of farting sounds coming from their website!
This could actually prove to be useful (aside from the comedic value, and learning exercise). I'll test to see if playing audio offers will make a difference in conversions. One thing for sure, my girls will love playing around with it. :D
