Explode the Web!

Make a browser extension to destroy web pages that steal your data.

slides | markdown | HTML

⌂ | 0-Introduction | 1-Hello World! | 2-Architecture | 3-DOM | 4-Explosion | 5-Examples

What is a Browser Extension?

  • Browser extensions are software that add features to a web browser.
  • Some are useful—the Wayback Machine extension shows you what a web page looked like in the past, even if it was deleted.

What is a Browser Extension?

  • Extensions can also be playful.
  • Meow Met displays a new random image from their collection that contains a cat when you open a new browser tab.
Emily McAllister, Metropolitan Museum of Art (2015)

What is a Browser Extension?

  • Ad blockers are some of the most popular extensions—removing annoying banner, popup, and video advertisements in real time2
  • Similarly, tracker blockers prevent hidden trackers from collecting and monetizing your private searches, communications, and behaviors.
Ghostery, Disconnect, Privacy Badger, AdBlockPlus

What you will learn

After this presentation you'll be able to:

  1. Explain how browser extensions are used
  2. Create a basic "hello world" example, and learn to debug extensions
  3. Access and change content of web pages using the DOM and Javascript libraries
  4. Complete an extension to explode web pages with hidden data trackers.

👉 Start the next section Hello World!

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