Shoot the Messenger: Chrome Extension for Message Cleanup
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(Buy my gf a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theahura -- I don't drink the stuff but she loves it)
If you're like me, you've been on FB Messenger for over a decade. And if you're like me, you care about privacy. I wrote this extension to clean up my digital footprint. Unlike other extensions, which only hide the messages from the user's inbox, Shoot the Messenger will remove messages from the RECEIVER'S inbox as well.
It's simple: you open a messenger thread on a desktop, press 'remove messages', and go get a coffee. While you're gone, the extension will scroll up through your messenger thread and automatically unsend every message. Unsending a message means that anyone in the thread will see 'X has unsent a message' instead of the original text of the message.
Technical details: this extension doesn't send any information to any servers, or try to reverse-engineer Facebook's messenger API. Instead, it simply simulates mouse clicks on the UI as if a user was pressing buttons.
The code can be found here: https://github.com/theahura/shoot-the-messenger/ I'll be posting updates on Twitter: https://twitter.com/theahura_
User reviews
- Works well for deleting messages
- Helpful for cleaning up conversations
- User-friendly for unsending messages
- Effective despite some speed issues
- Gratitude for the developer's attention to detail
- Sometimes skips messages during the deletion process
- Can be slow and requires multiple runs
- Removes messages for both parties, not just the sender
- Crashes frequently, requiring restart
- Errors related to usage outside of messenger.com
- Needs to run multiple times to delete all messages
- Works slowly but effectively
- Issues with skipping messages
- Desire for a version that only unsends for everyone
- Page refreshes unexpectedly during use
User reviews
Extension safety
Risk impact
Shoot the Messenger requires very minimum permissions.
Risk likelihood
Shoot the Messenger has earned a good reputation and can be trusted.
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