

Show HN: Honeybadger Chrome Extension - jaequery
http://gethoneybadger.com

======
tzaman
The orange nearly killed my eyes. Apart from that, why do you use fake
testimonials? I'm assuming that, since in the bottom you have a person, called
"Antonina K. Director of Operations, TrustGuard". The lady on the picture is
Sarah Parmenter: [http://ios-blog.co.uk/featured-posts/sarah-parmenter-web-
and...](http://ios-blog.co.uk/featured-posts/sarah-parmenter-web-and-ui-
designer/)

~~~
jaequery
Please understand this is a beta release, I've cut many corners left and right
to just get it out as it is.

~~~
drcoopster
I'm not sure that blatant testimonial fabrication and deception is really
cutting corners.

~~~
DanielStraight
Not to mention using someone's likeness to endorse your product without their
permission. I would imagine that is actually illegal.

~~~
jt2190
I knew a professional photographer who loved it when websites used his images
without permission, because he made a lot more money.

------
davidw
Ok, but what's it doing behind the scenes? I'm not sure I'd trust something
that's exchanging data about what I'm browsing with a lot of sites...

~~~
jaequery
Hi David, well I should make it clear that it does nothing else behind the
scenes other than make an HTTP call to get website data only when you hit
click to get the data, that's about the only thing it does. I get wary of
other extensions too when I install but I can tell you this app does not track
sites you browse if that's your concern (you can inspect it yourself and see).

~~~
MDCore
> but I can tell you this app does not track sites you browse

Except for this snippet of code in popup.js of course.

var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-40692955-5']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

Edit: I tested this with a console.log, and it output immediately on page
load, without clicking anything.

~~~
uptownhr
Not that's its impossible but popup.js is local to the extension.

------
andyhmltn
Nice little app! Just a little honest observation though: Is anything in the
tech section actually true?

I just checked my personal site and it came up with technologies I've never
heard of. It also said I use 'bitpay' for payments

~~~
jaequery
Thanks for pointing that out, there is a technical difficulty with the
builtwith stats right now, looking into it.

~~~
andyhmltn
Awesome nice work!

------
quasque
Your whois lookup is broken for ac.uk domains - for example, all of these
requests return the whois data for ac.uk itself, rather than the specified
domain:

[http://gethoneybadger.com:8080/whois/ox.ac.uk](http://gethoneybadger.com:8080/whois/ox.ac.uk)

[http://gethoneybadger.com:8080/whois/cam.ac.uk](http://gethoneybadger.com:8080/whois/cam.ac.uk)

[http://gethoneybadger.com:8080/whois/dur.ac.uk](http://gethoneybadger.com:8080/whois/dur.ac.uk)

(This list might help to uncover other problems like this:
[https://publicsuffix.org/](https://publicsuffix.org/))

------
robmcm
The fact you have a quote from "Antonina K. Director of Operations,
TrustGuard" with a photo of "Sarah Parmenter, Owner of You Know Who" makes me
think you made them up.

I wonder how many testimonials on the web are actually real?

~~~
outworlder
That depends. Do you require them to be in their original context and be still
current? If not, yes, I have seen some "real" ones.

------
wbond
Interesting little tool, however, the "Built With" section was 100%
incorrect/random for the few sites I checked.

~~~
ohadron
For me as well. Seems completely random and false even for things that are
extremely easy to detect such as Google Analytics.

------
sullivanmatt
I will start by saying that the site color scheme is pretty sharp for my eyes.
I think you'll have a more polished look by having the background be white
with a more neutral color palette.

For the extension itself: I like that it doesn't call out for information
unless called upon, but if I ask for information about a site, I see no reason
for you to have to collect the full URL and POST it to /track. That could lead
to unexpected data leakage (as some URLs could be sensitive). You should
probably get those API calls over to using HTTPS as well.

Also with every lookup, my console gets the log message "asdf", which is kind
of weird. One thing I noticed is that the extension is pretty slow to get
information. It appears it calls out for each item individually, and this
leads to seven unique calls to your API that could be condensed into one
request / response. If an API call fails with a 500 error, the entire
stacktrace is dumped to the user. You'll want to disable debugging mode in
your Express app to ensure that doesn't happen.

Since these APIs are public, you might want to consider rate limiting by IP,
or you might find that your extension isn't the only consumer of them. A free
and open WHOIS or Geolocation API that responds with JSON could be abused by
other app developers, and having that already around moves the cost from them
to you.

------
gyardley
It might be an awesome extension, but if it's not related to the company at
honeybadger.io, you need to rename the thing.

Even if the similarity was completely inadvertent, it's just going to lead to
confusion and legal hassle, and could end up hurting your reputation more than
the functionality of the extension will help it.

~~~
dingaling
A more traditional name for honey badger is the Boer 'ratel'.

It's also catchier - might make a better product name.

------
rubiquity
Were you aware that an exception handling service named Honeybadger already
exists?[0]

0 - [https://honeybadger.io](https://honeybadger.io)

~~~
sergiotapia
I actually thought this would integrate somehow to the service. So you're
telling me this is completely unrelated to Honeybadger the company?

~~~
rubiquity
As far as I can tell, yes this is completely unrelated to Honeybadger the
company.

------
raghavb
The most useful/interesting for me is the technology section. As that's not
the easiest to get data about. Unfortunately the info that its giving is
completely false/random. Checked it on a few websites that I've built or know
the stack and the info shown is completely wrong.

www.builtwith.com provides much more information but they do not have a chrome
plugin that I'm aware of. Definitely should check it out if your interested in
this plugin.

~~~
jaequery
Could you give me an example of a site you did? Although I know it's not 100%
accurate, from my experience, they were fairly accurate. I am pulling data
from builtwith.com btw.

~~~
dukekarthik
builtwith.com shows proper data but the extension shows completely random
information.

~~~
jaequery
so apparently we ran out of credits on builtwith. :(

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bichiliad
So you know, your "Leave Feedback" button seems to lead to a survey / feedback
form for "Competition Tab," rather than Honeybadger.

Edit: For what it's worth, if the plugin really does what it says it does on
the Chrome Webstore page, it sounds really, really useful. Will try later.

------
jaequery
I'm sure this extension will serve useful to you as it has done for me and my
colleagues. Hope you enjoy it!

~~~
drdaeman
Mind-blown! I can't browse websites without it!

/s

------
lorenzhs
Injecting Google Analytics into each and every page I visit is not cool,
mate... I uninstalled it again.

~~~
uptownhr
GA is not being injected into pages. it's only tracking the times you click on
the extension button.

------
mtford
So, HN was built with Stiqr and reddit was built with Website Tonight...?

~~~
jaequery
Ah, I see what you guys are saying now. I'll have to look it up why its doing
this!

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sudhirj
The Technology section is completely off the mark and seems to be choosing
servers and partners completely at random. Where are you pulling it from?

~~~
jaequery
yes its definitely off the mark at the moment, i'll be looking into it.

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LukeB_UK
The site gives me absolutely no information about what this extension actually
does. "Juicy informations" could literally be anything.

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king-coconut
Doesn't really work, shows only a blank white window, no info visible on any
of the sites I tried. Does the plugin work through www-proxy?

------
sudhirj
Am I the only one trying to figure out when the intro video was made based on
the HN frontpage it shows?

~~~
dewey
May 16, 11:17 PM. Top right corner ;)

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icefox
So what does it do? The text on the webpage doesn't actually say.

~~~
Bassetts
> At the mere click of a button, our honeybadger will let you see how much
> traffic the site gets, how much money they raised, what powers their stack,
> and much more.

------
ryangripp
Now we just need a Honeybadger Firefox edition

------
drcoopster
You couldn't come up with a less-lame name? And the "leave feedback" button
being a mailing list subscription form?

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BaconJuice
those testimonials seem fake? are they fake?

