

Tomodo - reskinning websites as-a-service - wodow
http://tomodo.com/

======
mikegirouard
I have some security concerns.

Consider the HN mod. You can try to log in there...
[http://hnews.tomodo.me/newslogin?whence=news](http://hnews.tomodo.me/newslogin?whence=news)

That form does post but not to HN.

~~~
tekacs
This is without doubt a reason for concern.

To be fair to them, however, the security of this platform is comparable [1]
to that of many users who are willing to download (and update) arbitrary
Greasemonkey scripts and browser plugins to achieve the same thing without
ever a glance at the source.

For those of us who might perform such an inspection there is, of course, a
difference.

Their comment (from their FAQ page) is:

> Can I trust modified sites with my private information? What about my logins
> and passwords?

> We care about, and do a great deal to ensure our users’ privacy and
> security. You can trust our service in the same way you trust your emails
> with Gmail or files with Dropbox. Trust is at the essence of our platform.

> If you write a Mod yourself, you can be 100% certain it is secured and your
> data is protected.

> We constantly review Mods that have been created to make sure they are safe
> to use. If we have even the slightest doubt, the Mod is immediately
> suspended. In addition, in case of reported abuse, the Mod in question is
> immediately removed.

[1]: With rather some counterpoints and nuances of course, from lack of SSL
cert identity (hell they don't even have HTTPS) to potential compromise of
Tomodo's servers at any time.

Edit: Also, supposedly, code sharing and review features are on the way - with
the caveat of still having to place some trust in Tomodo, this might allow for
more transparency. Similarly, given the nature of the mods, it might even be
possible to throw up one's own self-hosted server/service to use Tomodo mods.
Should be fun to find out. :)

------
wodow
Discovered via
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6172027](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6172027)

------
onli
This is a nice idea. But it has some flaws.

I can't open links on this site via middle click as a new tab, because the
links aint links, they are divs. Why? Totally annoying.

How is the selection of the mods on the frontpage made? I tried two, both were
a bit strange. Imdb with rottentomatoes has strange layout issues, the tomato-
icon is not aligned at all (on my machine). [1]

xkcd with swipe greets with a black overlay instead of doing the UI right and
next is in the wrong direction... though the animation itself works nicely.
[2]

On both of these, the big banner at the bottom is highly irritating. Yes, it
can be collapsed, but normally if I encounter such a thing I leave the site
immediately. The banner should be collapsed by default.

Below was mentioned FB is used as a comment-system, which would explain why it
doesn't load for me (Disconnect installed). That is indeed a nogo.

And especially if the business model involves adding ads to the original page
i highly doubt that will survive the copyright lawsuits...

Addition: The Terms of Use are very questionable, combined with the privacy
policy it says that the user would be made responsible for the copyright
violation and the private information of the user would be shared in that
case.

[1]
[http://www.rottenimdb.tomodo.me/title/tt1931533/](http://www.rottenimdb.tomodo.me/title/tt1931533/)

[2] [http://xkcd.tomodo.me/](http://xkcd.tomodo.me/)

------
wodow
I'm as conflicted about copyright as the next wannabe, but this FAQ entry is
either incredibly optimistic or incredibly naive:

> What about copyrights and terms of use? > Since websites have the ability to
> opt-out or ask to have specific Mods suspended, we are safe here. In
> general, website owners should be kept happy if you want your Mod to really
> thrive and be used by many.

( [http://tomodo.com/#faq](http://tomodo.com/#faq) )

The scenario I am thinking of is, of course: skin site, add adverts, don't
tell the site owner. They notice n weeks later. Do they just block you
(robots.txt-style or explicitly) or do they also sue for lost revenue?

~~~
herge
Is it a breach of copyright to open a site in an iframe? What about using
greasemonkey or adblock on a site, would that be copyright infringement?

~~~
wodow
You're not publishing the site to anyone else in those cases (well, depends
what you're doing with the iframe).

Copyright is (in theory) about copying, yes, but it's most commonly used in
anger due to publishing/republishing.

~~~
jqueryin
Given the fact you can modify and add your own content, it does become a grey
area. If it was simply re-skinning via CSS and JS, it wouldn't be nearly as
alarming.

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subsystem
Pretty fun. Made a layered HN concept with comments on right. Not very
functional, but you get the idea.

[http://ycombinator-tmp2669.tomodo.me/](http://ycombinator-tmp2669.tomodo.me/)
(click on a story)

~~~
odedgolan
I really liked
[http://newsycombinator.tomodo.me](http://newsycombinator.tomodo.me) with the
favicons posted by citricsquid (see below).

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Doches
How does this differ from a browser addon like GreaseMonkey that adds custom
Javascript on page load? This seems like the same idea, only using custom
(*.tomodo.me) urls and with Javascript pulled from a third-party server rather
than my local machine?

~~~
ra88it
Same idea, except with this product you can share your modification across
machines and users without making everybody install your plugins on their
client.

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visarga
I use Stylish and Grease Monkey to "fix" my favorite sites. Sometimes I find
browser extensions that do that. I don't need to settle for less when I can
make it how I like it.

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Kiro
What is it? The page contains no information (browsing on a phone).

~~~
citricsquid
You aren't kidding, their mobile site isn't good. The service exists as a
proxy between the user and the destination website that loads modifications
(javascript, css) and applies them to site. A server side version of
userscripts is a reasonable way to explain it, here's an example of adding
favicons before submissions on hn:
[http://newsycombinator.tomodo.me/](http://newsycombinator.tomodo.me/)

Here's their site with the mobile stylesheet disabled (how meta!):
[http://tomodomobile.tomodo.me/](http://tomodomobile.tomodo.me/)

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bdcravens
Interesting: it include the ability to include jQuery (1.72) and Bootstrap
(2.0.4). Why the old versions? (Looks like I can add my own newer versions,
but still...)

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mapleoin
Commenting on designs requires Facebook...

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jjbohn
Mobile site is useless.

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waxzce
nice :-)

