Hacker Blogs
Work in progress: 15,409 of 181,233 sites checked so far, more every week · updated 2 Nov 2026Missing a blog? Tell us

Top all-time · #1220

C

Chris Jones

Personal blog · squarefree.comwebsecurityprogramming

Chris Jones writes Indistinguishable from Jesse, a personal blog at squarefree.com about web, security and programming. Since 2007, 60 different Hacker News readers have linked it 93 times, most often “Bookmarklets for Zapping Web Annoyances”. The last post was in 2015, but the archive is still widely read.

Visit the blog
93mentions?
60HN people?
2007–2025first – last linked?
Links on Hacker News per year · peak 13 in 2011

Most-linked posts?

  1. Bookmarklets for Zapping Web Annoyances
    17 people · 31 mentions · first linked 2008-08-06
  2. /bookmarklets/
    4 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2011-08-26
  3. /bookmarklets/webdevel.html
    3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2010-03-12
  4. Race conditions in security dialogs; why you must wait before installing addons
    3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2011-07-12
  5. /bookmarklets/color.html
    2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2013-02-27
  6. /2010/07/14/fuzzing-talk-at-the-mozilla-summit/
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-11-12
  7. Sort any table by column and other useful bookmarklets
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-12-29
  8. /bookmarklets/forms.html
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-11-28
  9. /bookmarklets/zap.html
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2009-12-08
  10. /bookmarklets/zap.html
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-05-16

What Hacker News says?

  1. roryokane · 2013-02-18
    I don’t know pg’s reasons for making self-posts light gray, but you can fix problems like that with the bookmarklet Zap Colors: https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html

    Comment linking /bookmarklets/zap.html

    on “Why HN was down”
  2. dbaupp · 2015-07-29

    Submitted Releasing jsfunfuzz and DOMFuzz as a story · 118 points

    HN discussion
  3. sjs · 2011-11-21
    I had to use this 'zap' bookmarklet[1] on it. It was way too distracting. [1] https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html

    Comment linking /bookmarklets/zap.html

    on “The Sugru story”
  4. jkkramer · 2009-01-04

    Submitted Fuzzing TraceMonkey as a story · 10 points

    HN discussion
  5. skrause · 2014-03-07
    My fix is to not use dark themes anywhere. When I'm on a website with a dark background I click my "zap colors" bookmarklet which reverses the colors: https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html

    Comment linking /bookmarklets/zap.html

    on “F.lux updated”
  6. mbrubeck · 2011-08-10

    Submitted Ideas for ad-blockers that improve incentives for web advertisers as a story · 4 points

    HN discussion
  7. Breadmaker · 2019-05-21
    Color Bookmarklets https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/color.html

    Comment linking /bookmarklets/color.html

    on “Firefox 67.0 Released”
  8. azov · 2016-11-10

    Submitted Winning an election with 22% of the popular vote as a story · 2 points

    HN discussion
  9. wlesieutre · 2019-09-13
    I think mine came from here many years ago: https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/misc.html#increment The "works in" browser icons gives some idea of the date on that. IE, Phoenix, Netscape 4, and Opera. Probably some of the oldest still-in-use javascript in the world :P Ran it through prettier.io: javascript: (function() { var e, s; IB = 1; function isDigit(c) { return "0" <= c && c <= "9"; } L = location.href; L…

    Comment linking /bookmarklets/misc.html

    on “Stop Infinite Scrolling”
  10. cheiVia0 · 2016-10-16

    Submitted Lithium: automated testcase reduction tool as a story · 2 points

    HN discussion
  11. fabianholzer · 2024-02-10
    Copy your favorite classless css framework into this: https://www.squarefree.com/userstyles/make-bookmarklet.html - drag the bookmarklet into your favorite bar, and there you are :) body { max-width: 9in; } Could be a minimalistic starting point ;)

    Comment linking /userstyles/make-bookmarklet.html

    on “Why it's impossible to agree on what's allowed”
  12. neilc · 2007-11-28

    Submitted Detailed list of new features in Firefox 3 as a story · 2 points

    HN discussion
  13. jsnell · 2014-05-16
    Yes, but that's color scheme of half the internet these days so you just have to deal with it :-/ I recommend this bookmarklet: https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html#zap_colors

    Comment linking /bookmarklets/zap.html

    on “The shock of playing the Ouya, one year later”
  14. robin_reala · 2014-02-03

    Submitted Fuzzers love assertions as a story · 1 points

    HN discussion
  15. Timothee · 2010-03-15
    That post links to this one: http://www.squarefree.com/2004/03/05/color-constancy-illusio... I knew the gray-tone checkerboard but this is a very surprising illusion. I opened the image in Photoshop and had a hard time believing the effect: http://screenjel.ly/oHDkBcDFnoQ (video, no sound)

    Comment linking /2004/03/05/color-constancy-illusion/

    on “Teal and Orange - Hollywood, Please Stop the Madness”
  16. bdhe · 2011-07-12

    Submitted Race conditions in security dialogs; why you must wait before installing addons as a story · 1 points

    HN discussion
  17. mixmastamyk · 2013-08-09
    I'm currently using the Custom Buttons extension in Firefox to execute the script at: http://pastebin.com/9wWg1Ssw There is also a nice bookmarklet called invert-lightness I like a lot, however it is resource intensive on complicated pages as it must traverse the entire dom. So, I don't use it as much: https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/color.html

    Comment linking /bookmarklets/color.html

    on “Some killjoys have removed the blink tag from Firefox”
  18. nitrogen · 2010-12-29

    Submitted Sort any table by column and other useful bookmarklets as a story · 1 points

    HN discussion
  19. obtu · 2012-01-06
    That bookmarklet comes from squarefree (and looking at his about page, Russell Beatie should learn to credit other people): https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html

    Comment linking /bookmarklets/zap.html

    on “Damn Cool Algorithms: Fountain Codes”
  20. mbrubeck · 2009-07-27

    Submitted Making Firefox faster for humans as a story · 1 points

    HN discussion
  21. mrngm · 2025-01-21
    You might want to take a look at jsfunfuzz[0][1] or this USENIX paper[2] by Christian Holler, Kim Herzig and Andreas Zeller, called "Fuzzing with Code Fragments" (which also references [0]; two of the paper's authors contributed to the fuzzing book). Based on your description and the overlap in authors, LangFuzz, as presented in the paper, seems to match quite close. Roughly summarizing a few paragraphs of the paper…

    Comment linking /2007/08/02/introducing-jsfunfuzz/

    on “The Fuzzing Book”
  22. soundsop · 2008-08-06

    Submitted Bookmarklets for Zapping Web Annoyances as a story · 1 points

    HN discussion
  23. mbrubeck · 2011-12-20
    There are a lot of possibilities beyond just switching a default from one competitor to another. For example, a differently-designed UI could make it easier to get results from multiple search engines. For one illustration, see http://clarkbw.net/tmp/Firefox-Awesome-Search.html For more thoughts on this topic, see http://www.squarefree.com/2011/08/12/how-mozilla-could-impro...

    Comment linking /2011/08/12/how-mozilla-could-improve-search-engine-competition/

    on “Mozilla and Google Sign New Agreement for Default Search in Firefox”
  24. jamesbritt · 2013-01-15
    "Bookmarklets for Zapping Annoyances" is your friend. Zap Colors is super handy when I can't easily make out text from background. https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html

    Comment linking /bookmarklets/zap.html

    on “Design Books Every Hacker Should Read”
  25. FiddlerClamp · 2020-06-07
    I've been using Zap and Zap Colors from this site for the past 15+ years: https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html

    Comment linking /bookmarklets/zap.html

    on “Bookmarklets I Use”
  26. notRobot · 2020-06-07
    I love bookmarklets. There are many fantastic ones here: https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/ They haven't been updated in a while but they work perfectly in latest FF (and Chrome I suppose).

    Comment linking /bookmarklets/

    on “Bookmarklets I Use”
  27. maxerickson · 2012-10-29
    You can mitigate this with a bookmarklet. Jesse Ruderman's zap events doesn't block onmousedown (which Google uses), but it is easy enough to add it: https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html#zap_events

    Comment linking /bookmarklets/zap.html

    on “Always “hover” before you click? Wrong.”
  28. m0d0nne11 · 2025-02-02
    Aficionados will appreciate Jesse Ruderman's bookmarklets at https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/ which have been saving my sanity since the early 2000s.

    Comment linking /bookmarklets/

    on “A bookmarklet to kill sticky headers (2013)”
  29. mixmastamyk · 2013-02-27
    Depends on the typical and current conditions of the viewer--however few people realize it. Those that do use f.lux or one of the others. For example, if the viewer sits in an office under 50 florescent lights, dark on light is best (e.g. Excel-jockies). This viewer "can't imagine any other way!" I often wonder how these people survived before Windows. If instead they are a digital artist in dim lighting (for better…

    Comment linking /bookmarklets/color.html

    on “Simple user styles for popular websites”
  30. maxerickson · 2020-12-18
    There's lots of bookmarklets. I just tried the one from https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/pagedata.html in Firefox, worked fine.

    Comment linking /bookmarklets/pagedata.html

    on “How I Met My Wife (1994)”

Search all of HN for squarefree.com

Linked by the same people?