XKit
Month
Today’s post is kinda long and personal, even though I try my best to refrain from personal posts, I thought it was a good idea to write this.
Since it’s very long, it’s read mored. My apologizes if you are on mobile.
There is an ongoing problem where you can’t insert photos to asks while answering them, but since the problem continues even after disabling XKit, I can confirm that it is a Tumblr bug, not an XKit one.
I’m sorry about this, but there is nothing I can do except let you know.
Yesterday, I’ve introduced XKit Packs, which allows developers to distribute XKit extensions without my permission/inspection. And I’ll be honest, I had about 4 hours of sleep last night.
Although I’ve implemented some server-side checking for scripts, which forbids developers from using IFRAMES, redirect pages or open popups, as you know, no system is bullet-proof.
So, I’ve started thinking: what if someone, somehow, bypasses this security system? Or what if they write a perfectly fine extension, get everyone to install it, then send an update that does bad stuff? Or what if they manage to break the “kill switch” used to delete malicious extensions? Or what if a developer with good intentions write a very buggy extension that causes a lot of problems for users?
Yes, bad software is everywhere, and any extension/application you install can do some very nasty stuff. But I just don’t want to provide the bad people yet another method of distribution. I want people to be able to click that Install button without worrying about what it might do.
So, less than 12 hours after it’s release, I am temporarily disabling creating/editing XKit Packs: if you’ve already published a Pack, people will be able to install it, but you won’t be able to edit it for now. Although it defeats the purpose of Packs, I will be implementing an approval system, so whenever you create/edit a Pack, it will need my inspection and approval to make it publicly available. Still, since it will be automated, when finished, it should be much faster and easier than the traditional way of submitting an extension to the Extension Gallery.
I’m terribly sorry and I apologize for this, especially to the extension developers. I hope you understand. When the approval system is done, I’ll be announcing it on the XKit Developer Blog.
Search Likes
Outbox
Read More Now
For the full list of today’s updates, including bug fixes, please click here.
No Recommended is an experimental new extension that removes “Recommended Posts” from your dashboard, and is now available on the Extension Gallery.
Please note that this only removes Recommended Posts. To remove Recommended Blogs on the sidebar, you can use the Tweaks extension.
And since I couldn’t test it personally, if you hit any bugs or see recommended posts after installing it, please let me know by sending me an ask. Thank you!
Today’s Tumblr change brought a bigger user information popup, and broke User Menus+ (and extensions that depend on it, such as Profiler).
The extension has been updated, and if you don’t like the popups, you can install it and enable “XKit Classic User Menu” option under it’s control panel to hide the popups that appear whenever you hover over a link.
Also, I’ve been receiving a lot of asks about “Recommended Posts”: as you know, I’m against hiding “Sponsored Posts”, posts paid by advertisers, since they pay Tumblr’s bills, but “Recommended Posts” don’t seem to serve that purpose, and might contain content that you don’t like for one reason or another. I would love to write an extension that hides them, but I’ve yet to see one on any of my accounts.
So if anyone has technical information about Recommended Posts, such as class names/IDs or DIVs that only appear on them, please send me an ask and I’ll write an extension that hides them. Thank you!
It looks like the XKit servers crashed a couple of hours ago for a while, bringing down the XKit website, theme of this blog and the XKit Update and Extension Gallery services.
Since I wasn’t home at that time, I am not sure what exactly happened, but it looks like there was a problem with my web hosting provider. It looks like they’ve fixed it, so all XKit services should be accessible now.
If you’ve disabled / uninstalled XKit because it would refuse to (re)install, you can re-enable it now.
I apologize deeply about this, and since this has happened before, I will be switching web hosting providers as soon as possible in order to provide a more reliable service.