Chrome extension lets you read Quora without logging in

https://github.com/benvinegar/Spectacles/blob/master/README.md

by BenjaminCoe • 14 years ago

55 50 14 years ago

github.com

sulife2• 14 years ago

I wish google would block quora if theyre going to pull this crap like expertsexchange does... it adds no value

kalid• 14 years ago

Here's Google's policy on cloaking:

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...

Achshar• 14 years ago

But why? Genuine question. What has quora done that is block worthy? Matt cuts made a video on google webmasters channel on why expertexchangd is not blocked. I am on phone so cant paste link. You should check it out.

gergles• 14 years ago

It's on the same level as putting content on the page in a 1pt white-on-white font. Sure, the content is technically there, but humans can't read it.

Expert sex change at least has the content on the page, unadulterated, after you scroll past a bunch of ad blocks. Totally different from what Quora does.

rand_r• 14 years ago

Link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9T6LNMvpvw&feature=plcp

franze2• 14 years ago

why should anyone install an extension to read a website that obviously does not care about the (life)time of it's visitors.

just stop reading quora and stop clicking on quora links (especially in the google SERPs) and the problem will solve itself.

bentlegen7• 14 years ago

To be honest, my goal with this extension was to raise awareness about Quora obfuscating answers for anonymous visitors ala Experts Exchange.

Most contributors on Quora don't know that their content is being presented this way. (According to Quora's ToS, the submitter's content is their own.)

franze2• 14 years ago

you definitely succeded

Steko• 14 years ago

Suggested rename: Because Fuck Quora

benologist2• 14 years ago

It's probably worth using now that they publish everything you read as well.

eli• 14 years ago

I typically just want the answer to my question when I Google something.

notJim• 14 years ago

There's actually a lot of really great, interesting content on Quora. I wish I could stop clicking, but when I see them in search results or get their emails, I know that whatever content is on the other side is likely to be good. I actually have a Quora account, too, but I don't understand why I need to log in to read something. Lately my strategy has just been to edit the CSS in the inspector.

This isn't to say I like Quora. I can't wait for someone to come along and fucking destroy them, and take their excellent userbase with them.

zem• 14 years ago

block quora pages from your google results. problem solved.

agildehaus2• 14 years ago

You can just highlight the blurred text on Quora to read it. No extension required.

bentlegen7• 14 years ago

Doesn't work for me in Chrome: http://imgur.com/OAwSY.png

Or Firefox: http://i.imgur.com/wv7JJ.png

agildehaus2• 14 years ago

Works for me on both Chrome and Firefox. These are the Windows versions though, so YMMV. What does Ctrl-A do?

donretag• 14 years ago

Exactly. CTRL-a. Done.

huhtenberg2• 14 years ago

Erm... I am not getting any "spectacles" and I am not logged in. I don't even have an account with Quora.

Here's what I see - http://imgur.com/m9G1Q

What am I missing?

hkmurakami• 14 years ago

My friend and I believe that this is part of Quora's A/B testing.

(I got the blur, while my friend could see everything.)

huhtenberg2• 14 years ago

That is a very sensible guess. I am too now getting the blur.

bentlegen7• 14 years ago

I get the blurred answers 100% of the time if you arrive at Quora via a Google search. Try this URL:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&#...

Also, the first answer is always clear - they blur subsequent answers.

aidenn0• 14 years ago

I don't from that link; just a big green "Sign Up" button at the top and unblurred answers below

alter8• 14 years ago

Ah, so you only get those blurred answers if you come from a search engine. That's the first time I see it in action. I have javascript disabled so I get an opaque block over the answer.

executive• 14 years ago

no support for Chromium on xubuntu 12.04?

bentlegen7• 14 years ago

Patches are welcome.

jack-r-abbit2• 14 years ago

The extension won't install for me but it is easy enough to follow his link to the user script that inspired 80% of the extension and just use that. Also easy enough to add the missing 20% as well. Great idea. I had noticed last week just how easy it was to manipulate the CSS on Quora to do this. Glad some people took the time to roll something up for the rest of us. I seem to be finding myself linked here more recently. :/

bentlegen7• 14 years ago

Shitty. Any clues as to what happened? I just removed and reinstalled via the Chrome store without any trouble.

jack-r-abbit2• 14 years ago

Probably that I'm using RockMelt and not Chrome. I don't know enough about extensions to even make a guess at why some work in RockMelt and some don't.

nollidge• 14 years ago

I don't understand why any websites do things like this. Yesterday I tried visiting a link someone had tweeted for fab.com, only to find I had to sign up before I could view it[0]. Does this technique actually work for building a customer base? It actively drives me away, that's for sure.

[0] For fob's sake, you can't even view their Contact Us page without signing up: http://fab.com/contact-us/

mnicole• 14 years ago

Same situation for other sites like that (Gilt Groupe, The Clymb, etc.). Even as a registered user, if I'm on a new device (especially mobile) and I click on a link through an email and I can't see those products, I'm not going to log in to buy. I've played that game countless times and I truly don't understand it. There's nothing "exclusive" about it. If you don't have an account, that's as exclusive as it gets, but at least show me what I'm missing.

unjinxable2• 14 years ago

I found this great little jQuery bookmarklet generator from Ben Alman:

http://benalman.com/code/test/jquery-run-code-bookmarklet/

You can just paste this code in and generate yourself a bookmarklet to reveal the quora answers (should work on all browsers).

  $('.blurred_answer_wrapper').removeClass('blurred_answer_wrapper');
  $('.with_signup').removeClass('with_signup');
  $('.signup_cta_on_answer').remove();

unjinxable2• 14 years ago

Let's see if HN allows this long link directly to the generated bookmarklet:

http://benalman.com/code/test/jquery-run-code-bookmarklet/?n...

bentlegen7• 14 years ago

Yeah, there's nothing magical about the actual implementation (there are a couple more lines in the repo, though).

The Chrome extension is nice because it automatically executes on quora.com (and not elsewhere). Install and forget.

swah• 14 years ago

Wasn't this the first time "Quora fucked up"? Why is everyone being so harsh instead of waiting for what they are going to say about it?

slig• 14 years ago

I'm curious to what they have to say about having to email them (and waiting 24h) in order to delete your account.

tzs• 14 years ago

Google, and the other search engines, should develop a standard that allows a page to tell the search engine if it does this kind of thing. More generally, it should be able to tell the search engine which of these categories the page falls under:

• Freely readable with no need to register. E.g., Stack Exchange.

• Site requires login, but accounts are generally free. E.g., Quora.

• Site requires login, accounts are not necessarily free. E.g., Wall Street Journal.

• Per article fee. E.g., many scientific journals.

• Content not actually available online. E.g., many hits on Google Books, where they have excerpts of the book online so you can find it via search, but to actually get the full content you have to by the physical book.

Users could then choose to exclude some categories from their search results, or to have some shown ahead of others.

smegel• 14 years ago

How could google index a page if the page requires an account to view? I'm pretty sure googlebot has no such account. Surely such pages are invisible to google.

alexlitov• 14 years ago

It's called cloaking when a bot gets one version of the site and a normal user gets a different page. This can be done based on user agent or IP.

tomku• 14 years ago

Many forums give read-only access to Google and other search engines so that they can be indexed without requiring an account, sometimes by UA or IP range.

gmu3• 14 years ago

Somewhat related, the hidden answers on Quora are always visible/indexable in the page source (on occasion that's how I've read answers without signing in and without downloading an extension)

TazeTSchnitzel• 14 years ago

You're assuming sites like experts-exchange, which use SEO to lure in users with hidden answers to questions, will actually provide this data?

LouLang• 14 years ago

You could just crowd source it. When you quickly back out of a page from Google, it offers to "Block all Pages from somedomain.com". This could easily be repurposed to also garner additional details about the site.

Chrome extension lets you read Quora without logging in

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