
Show HN: Check who, when and how is viewing your PDF - jasekt
https://www.helprange.com/
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timvdalen
I wanted to find our how you were tracking live results when viewing (as it
turns out, a JS PDF viewer) but found the requirement of entering an email
address to be a big hurdle.

It might make sense to have a demo where people can see how the PDF viewer
works (so they know what they'll be sending their clients) before requiring
them to give out their information.

~~~
jasekt
Thank you for your feedback.

We thought that it would be best if you test it with your own file. In that
case we need to send you link to analytics in case you want to remove pdf from
our servers.

Your suggestion seems to have potential to considerably lower friction. We
will look into it, thanks.

~~~
chatmasta
You could just delete files created with no email after a few hours.

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lozzo
I could not find an explanation on how it works. How could you possibly know
when I am opening your PDF file ? I presume opening your PDF file will trigger
some kind of http / socket request to a site that you control. so how would
you control companies'firewall ? and/or any other settings that could prevent
my pdf reader to go online

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Rainymood
Really cool, really creepy. Best of luck, I guess? I think it's kind of
unsettling someone could track where I'm reading on a PDF ...

~~~
jasekt
Our tracking feature is a kind of a website analytics tool tailored for PDF
usage. When interacting with companies you can safely assume that you are
being tracked and analysed. We are adding another layer that gives companies
additional information, potentially making your life a little bit easier. Of
course one can argue it can be misused. We have tried to mitigate it by
branding PDF viewer and being open about it.

~~~
Rainymood
>Our tracking feature is a kind of a website analytics tool tailored for PDF
usage. When interacting with companies you can safely assume that you are
being tracked and analysed. We are adding another layer that gives companies
additional information, potentially making your life a little bit easier. Of
course one can argue it can be misused. We have tried to mitigate it by
branding PDF viewer and being open about it.

>When interacting with companies you can safely assume that you are being
tracked and analysed.

Welcome to the new normal ... I realize this is standard practice under the
veil of "increasing customer satisfaction using large scale data analysis" but
it still feels iffy if stated explicitly.

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BartBoch
Very interesting project! Do you have a monetization strategy in mind already,
or it will be created later on?

Is there plan to add ads to PDF's?

~~~
jasekt
Thank you :) We have never intended to show adds. In our opinion it could be
counterproductive in the long term. Our monetization strategy assumes having
free pdf sharing to spread the word and paying enterprise customers to pay the
bills. Yet it is about to be tested.

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gmemstr
I really want to use this - I run a school student newsletter and would love
to be able to see how people are reading it. Unfortunately I'd want to host
this on my own server that I already have set up serving the PDFs with some
small PHP scripts and Caddy. Any options for this use case?

