Digging in, there are a few reasons actually - first is, Chrome removes extensions with this kind of functionality from the Web Store constantly (only option would be to sideload).
Under the hood, Incoggo is also actually a local proxy (it adds a trusted root cert during the install process - we have some details on this / other potential issues / concerns on our forum). Reason for this being, Chrome extensions can't modify inbound requests in the way that's required to unblock several of the publications we support (NYT, Bloomberg, WaPo being key examples).
Also, screw building extensions for Safari.
That's a non-starter for me. I do not want an application to be able to MITM all traffic.
Surely you just need to be able to MITM certain domains (the ones of the paywalled websites you unblock), can't you just create individual self-signed certificates for those and trust them one by one?
That said, I hope they support video soon so I can get rid of that annoying NetflixHBOHuluDisney+ paywall.
If you’re a very security-minded individual (or you use your computer for very sensitive tasks), before using Incoggo you may want to be aware that the application does the following:
Upon installation, Incoggo adds a file to your system’s sudoers.d folder that whitelists specific commands from requiring a sudo password to perform. (This allows Incoggo to manage your system proxy settings, kill certain processes on shutdown / restart, and perform tasks related to Incoggo’s auto-updating feature without requiring that a sudo password be prompted each time.)
Incoggo loads external Javascript files when you visit specific domains (i.e. those we filter paywalls / clear cookies on / clear storage on / etc.).
Incoggo overwrites a few system defaults (re: open page / process limits) at runtime for performance reasons.
Upon installation, Incoggo also installs a trusted root certificate in your system keystore. This is required for Incoggo’s advanced filtering functionality to work (unlike the issues above – which we intend to clean up shortly – this one is a hard requirement for the app to work).Right now, we don't make money or monetize at all, and are still exploring options. For the foreseeable future, we're 100% focused on growth and plan to raise VC funding to sustain operations. Ultimately, we want to find a monetization solution that works well for everyone and keeps our interests aligned with the best interest of our users.
Anyway thanks for the effort and the transparency, I'll consider to install it on a secondary browser just for read some articles.
If news sites started using methods outside the browser for determining if you have access, like allowlisting IP addresses, how could this bypass that? Projects like bypass-paywalls-chrome [1] (which works on firefox) get the job done just fine. Is there really a scenario where this is needed to unblock a website?
Additionally, parts of the privacy policy strongly implying browsing history is collected and sold - although I may have misinterpreted this. My apologies if so. "Information We Collect When You Use... the Desktop Application... [we collect] your web browsing history (URLs that you visit)... [and] WE USE THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT... To generate and share aggregated, anonymized, or de-identified information about the web browsing activity of all of our users with our partners and other third parties for marketing, advertising, research, or similar purposes" [2].