'Knockoff' Browser Extension Hides Sketchy Brands On Amazon (404media.co) 68
alternative_right shares a report from 404 Media: A software developer made a Chrome and Firefox extension called Knockoff that automatically hides, grays out, or filters products from sketchy brands on Amazon, which highlights just how many shady brands are on the platform and how commonly they show up on searches for basic items. In just a few minutes of using the extension, Knockoff dimmed product listings for screwdrivers made by "SUNHZMCKP," spoons made by "SACATR," and a lamp made by "ROTTOGOON."
In a tweet announcing the extension, developer Josh Pigford wrote "Sorry to brands like WNPETHOME, EHEYCIGA, YXYL, LU&MN, JOYIN, TOMY, GODONLIF, YOOJEE, LINGTENG, LANEIGE, VISCOO, BIODANCE, COOFANDY, BALENNZ, TOSY, and LUENX." The extension can also hide all sponsored product listings. The extension quickly went viral as a much-needed filter for people who still use Amazon and, for those who don't use Amazon because of its horrendous labor practices and other concerns, it is evidence of what an incredible wasteland the platform has become.
In a tweet announcing the extension, developer Josh Pigford wrote "Sorry to brands like WNPETHOME, EHEYCIGA, YXYL, LU&MN, JOYIN, TOMY, GODONLIF, YOOJEE, LINGTENG, LANEIGE, VISCOO, BIODANCE, COOFANDY, BALENNZ, TOSY, and LUENX." The extension can also hide all sponsored product listings. The extension quickly went viral as a much-needed filter for people who still use Amazon and, for those who don't use Amazon because of its horrendous labor practices and other concerns, it is evidence of what an incredible wasteland the platform has become.
YMMV - But the knockoffs have a legit market (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I have to agree. Now, I really wish they'd make an actual brand name for themselves and label the products that way, but half the time those "SEGBDGEDC" brand items for things like screwdrivers, drills, etc actually work plenty good enough for home DIY type stuff. I wouldn't use them if I was using a tool every day for work but for around the house its fine.
To some degree "VEVOR" has started doing that though. A lot of the "cheap but ok" stuff has been started to be branded VEVOR pretty frequently.
Re: (Score:2)
Agree, I buy a lot of fiber optic cables for work and many of the cheaper brands on there have been solid with no problems (Yutianhome is one in particular). While i try to prefer more "reputable" suppliers like LANShack I have to say the quality is comparable. Ditto for SFP adapters, Amazon is where I came across 10GTek and they have always been solid and reliable by my anecdotal experience.
Re: (Score:2)
"Yutianhome"
See there is the trick, find companies out there that actually TRY to be human sounding instead of just random grouping of letters and numbers. This is usually the first sign that you're more likely to encounter legit yet cheap product. Vevor is... eh kinda easy to remember and their product listing prices look more like what an actual manufacturer would be charging to retailers buying their stock.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, also I have a pair of Coofandy 'business' drawstring pants. They're absolutely fucking comfortable and fit well.
Re: (Score:3)
I really wish they'd make an actual brand name for themselves and label the products that way,
I recently bought a set of three Sheffield pocket knives for $20USD. I didn't even know there was a town named Sheffield in Guangdong province.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I have a BearMoo magnifying glass. It works perfectly growlcow.
Re: (Score:2)
I bought a 'VEVOR' binding machine, and it works fine.
Those punch a row of rectangular holes in a sheet of paper, then open the row of plastic fingers down the entire length of a tubular binder. c c c c c c c + = = = = = =, basically.
I use it to make bound notes for a game I'm playing.
Yeah, there's loose-leaf binders, but I've never had those fail to start shredding the holes in the paper.
Re: (Score:2)
Knockoffs do have a legit market, but if I choose to buy them I prefer to do it on Aliexpress where I can cut out the middleman and save a few bucks (in exchange for slightly longer shipping times).
Re: (Score:3)
Depends on whether I want to wait for the longer shipping.
For me, there are three classes of products:
Re: (Score:3)
When you buy this stuff from Amazon, you are paying for Amazon's notoriously customer friendly return policy: If there is a problem (quality, did not arrive, etc.) Amazon gives you your money back.
There is also a measure of privacy protection when purchasing thru Amazon. Amazon filters thing like your email address from the seller -reducing spam. They do share address and telephone numbers with the seller if they are shipping direct (not from Amazon's FBA warehouses), but they prohibit direct contact by p
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You know, there are these things called yard sales and flea markets where you can get forks, or entire sets, for less than what you pay on Amazon.
Re: (Score:2)
I think this extension is a very cool idea.
That said... I own several shirts, a set of pajamas, and a sport coat from COOFANDY. They are cheap. They look good. They fit well. They are durable enough to have lasted several years of use so far.
Cheap chineseum is not necessarily bad... but it is not necessarily good either. It is cheap. The quality is a crapshoot.
Re: YMMV - But the knockoffs have a legit market (Score:1)
I don't mind Coofandy either. I have trouble finding clothes that fit sometimes, which requires ordering clothes from brick and mortar stores instead of buying in the store. I have some Coofandy items that fit well and are comfortable.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: YMMV - But the knockoffs have a legit market (Score:1)
Lead, arsenic, hexavalent chromium, mercury all sorts of nasty stuff. A lot of Chinese stainless steel is just a bunch of scrap metal alloyed into something that looks right. You never know if you get 201 stainless or some amalgamation of debased material.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I'm pretty sure I saw YMMV brand dinner forks on Amazon!
Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Why would I pay more for the same stuff from a "reputable" brand
Reputation, specifically a local office, comes with liability which quite often drives independent quality control. Depending on the item those "same stuff" may look very different on the inside compared to the outside.
Just a personal example, I was looking at digital bluetooth thermometers for BBQs (the ones that get mounted in the lid) I bought one from a brand name for 75EUR. I saw the same one a few months later on Aliexpress for 15EUR and was curious so I bought it. They look the same, except I cut my
TOMY is legit (Score:5, Informative)
TOMY is totally legit!!!!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomy
https://us.tomy.com/
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Marketplace filter (Score:2)
I found a site that filters out marketplace sellers https://katrina.life/s/ [katrina.life]
See how little Amazon actually sells directly.
It's easy to do without an extension (Score:3)
All you need is common sense, skepticism and an understanding of how Amazon works.
Some cheap Chinese stuff sold by sellers with nonsense names is good enough.
Some is total crap.
It's easy to tell them apart.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
If you swing a hammer for a living, you know the difference between the brands. They feel different in your hand. The performance is irrelevant to a home user who only uses it occasionally, but a pro can tell the difference. The right tool can be used daily for years. The wrong one will cause RSI.
Re: (Score:2)
This is wrong and literally dangerous.
Firstly a lot of people don't really understand the whole idea of a hybrid marketplace where it is a legit brand but also hosts ones selling dangerous crap. Especially most people don't realise that it's somehow fine for Amazon to sell stuff which is illegal. Amazon is hosting it, providing the storefront, processing the sale and payment. To most people that's selling.
And even if you do know, it's really hard to identify what's merely cheep cheese and actively dangerous
Ublock Origin FTW (Score:3)
This is an outrage! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This is an outrage! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: This is an outrage! (Score:2)
Remember TigerDirect? (Score:1, Troll)
Anyway in electronics there are different grades of quality. TigerDirect made a business selling the B and c grade stuff. Because of that they could undercut just about anyone but they often sold junk.
Think of it like how Intel bins their CPUs only it's stuff like the quality of the electrical wiring in the final product.
So the practice I think has more or less gone away for major brands. They have much better quality control s
I would be terrified putting this out (Score:1)
As an American I don't have a hell of a lot of civil liberties left but I can't at least talk shit about bad companies. I mean for the time being and all...
Hold Amazon Should Responisble for its Brands (Score:3)
Paradox (Score:3)
Uh, not sure these are really knock-offs? (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess it's all subject to interpretation. But to me, a true knock-off is defined as a product trying to trick someone into thinking it's one made by a name-brand manufacturer -- doing its best to copy-cat the original.
What I see on Amazon constantly are Chinese-made products that have no real equivalent I can find with brand-name alternatives, but they all like to use those "gibberish" names made of random letters. And in most cases? The exact same product, or a very slightly altered variant, is sold under multiple "gibberish" names. Pretty sure a lot of these come from the same Chinese factory but they market it under various brands to improve visibility and to pump up sales numbers?
Just one recent example would be one of the "power bank" type charges for your mobile devices that has built-in cables to work with USB-C, Lightning, Micro USB and then standard USB: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CF... [amazon.com]
Whoever VRURC is, I'm sure it's just another nonsense alphabetic name ... but I haven't seen one quite like this sold at retailers like Micro Center. I suspect it's partially because the Lightning connector is owned by Apple and you have to pay them to obtain certified ones to use in your products? Chinese vendors often just get around these extra costs by recycling/repurposing existing salvaged Lightning ports/cables. Helps allow them to sell these devices affordably.
Re:Uh, not sure these are really knock-offs? (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole thing sounds pretty arbitrary. I've got an electric screwdriver with some name like "Goofun" on it that was clearly designed by engineers who wanted to make the best electric screwdriver they could. I've also got one from "Black and Decker" that is of much lower quality.
WTF is "Black and Decker" anyway? Or "Google?" "Microsoft" sounds like a sex joke, and last time I had "Coca-Cola" it didn't contain any of either.
Re: (Score:2)
Black and Decker, you know... Duncan Black and Alonzo Decker?
Perhaps you've heard of them. Oh, wait, yes, you have heard of them, because they put their names on your screwdriver.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree these are often not knock-offs.
Often they're nearly identical but from different factories, but it's the same CAD drawings for all the parts that are shared between factories as part of their social network.
Sometimes you'll find one that's nearly identical but especially bad, falls apart, or doesn't work at all. And you might wonder about QA, but often there is no QA; it's presumed that it's a working design, and they only QA the designs, not the output.
Sometimes you find one that has some small des
Re: (Score:2)
And if you search it sometimes you can find the exact same item sold on Aliexpress or Amazon with a strange brand.
I wanted to see ... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You can use the Google Chrome extensions store from Edge and install any add-on directly. Edge is really just Chrome.
Amazon Basics (Score:2)
*poof*...gone
Too late (Score:2)
This extension may have helped back around 2016 when Amazon was starting its enshitification campaign. But today's Amazon, no way in hell I'm wasting my money on that site. It has turned into a Chinesium flea market full of cockroaches.
Re: (Score:2)
Can't blame the Chinese. Or really Amazon. They are only selling what Americans are demanding.
Re: (Score:2)
I would agree, except that in most cases the brick & mortar specialty store that used to sell the higher quality product doesn't exist anymore. In the cases where a quality product is still manufactured, I can usually go the the company's website and buy it direct, or buy it from the company's official Amazon storefront for less .
At a box store, the products are the same as the ones on Amazon, but more expensive. Though you can at least take a closer look at what they skimped on.
What I find funny is th
Re: (Score:2)
"except that in most cases the brick & mortar specialty store that used to sell the higher quality product doesn't exist anymore"
This right here. Local markets have been decimated. I would much rather pay more for better quality. Not all Americans want the cheap Chinese shit.
OEM dropshippers (Score:2)
That's what most of those brands seem to be: dropshippers carrying OEM versions of products made for larger and more well-known brands. I'm used to dealing with that, techies have after all been getting OEM products from China et. al. since forever since they're often exactly the same thing as the name brands just without the branding on the case. The explosion of different "brands" on Amazon just highlights the same problem we had back then: distinguishing the reliable ones (who sold the OEM version of the
Re: OEM dropshippers (Score:2)
Knockoff (Score:1)
Lawsuits incoming? (Score:2)
The first false positive may be expensive for them. Maybe even some true positives if the company claims something like anti-competitive behavior. And the users risk that the extension developer can arbitrarily blacklist any brand they dislike for them and they won't even know.
Re: (Score:2)
Sue for what, stating an opinion?
The extension allows users to tag a flagged company as legit. I suspect the devs have a system that if a flagged name is deemed legit by enough users it will be evaluated by a human and then whitelisted.
Simple heuristic (Score:2)
Still?? (Score:2)
>"The extension quickly went viral as a much-needed filter for people who still use Amazon"
Who "still use Amazon"? As opposed to what? Walmart?? Is buying from Amazon not a thing anymore and I somehow missed it?
Boomeresque (Score:1)
LUENX isn't a knockoff (Score:3)
I'm on my third set of LUENX sunglasses. When I inevitably lose this pair (the fate of all my sunglasses), I'll probably buy another. I want purple shiny polarized glasses, they sell those. The say LUENX on the sides. The microfiber cloth that comes with them says LUENX. The little test card for polarization says LUENX (you can only read it through polarized lenses, of course).
So how are these a sketchy brand, or a knockoff, or whatever? These things work fine, arrive at my door the next day, and are like 15 bucks. Am I to believe that these are somehow a bad buy for 15 bucks? Am I to be enraged that I could probably get them for 9 dollars if I went directly to their website, or to alibaba or something?
Anyone have a suggestion for a nice pair of shiny purple polarized sunglasses- ones that aren't Luxotica (aka EssilorLuxottica these days)?
"Knockoff" brands (Score:1)
Pfft. I know a genuine Panaphonics when I see it. And look, there's Magnetbox and Sorny.
Project is a copy of AmazonBrandFilter plug-in (Score:4, Interesting)
Saw this on Hacker News yesterday too. I wish the poster would have read some of the first comments where the author of project "AmazonBrandFilter" posts about how this project is essentially just grabbing his list.
I just installed "AmazonBrandFilter" and it seems to work: https://github.com/chris-mosle... [github.com]
Someone mentioned UBlock Origin also does this but I'm running that too and it didn't block as aggressively (if at all) as this plugin.
I hope it blocks amazon products (Score:2)