Kiwi Conversations chrome extension

What is Kiwi Conversations?

Kiwi Conversations is a kiwi extension for chrome. it's a free extension , it has 199 active users since released its first version, it earns an average rating of 4.60 from 10 rated user, last update is 2855 days ago.

What’s new in version 1.2.6?

                As you browse the web - Kiwi checks to see if there have ever been any conversations on reddit, Hacker News, and Product Hunt about the web page you're visiting. It also checks Google News for related news.

You can also make a custom search (any string of characters) across all the services.  This returns the all-time best conversations about whatever you're searching.  Try "MacBook", the place you live, or anything you want to learn about.

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As you browse the web it searches for conversations: If it finds any results -- the icon updates with a letter depending on what it finds ('r','h','p', or 'G').  If it finds conversations with a *ton* of comments - it capitalizes the letter. So "R" means that thirty or more people commented in a Reddit thread about the site you're visiting. etc.
To view the results, just click the icon.


There's more information available at www.metafruit.com

Enjoy! :)

Home page: www.metafruit.com/kiwi

License: https://github.com/sdailey/kiwi/blob/master/LICENSE

Twitter: @spencenow

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Privacy Settings:

Kiwi uses 3rd party APIs to provide conversations while you surf. 

With Research mode to "Off" by default, you can check URLs on a case-by-case basis (and still be able to do custom searches). Admittedly, it takes some of the serendipity out of it, but this prevents Kiwi from automatically performing searches as you surf. 

[Version 1.0.1 Note:: Kiwi Conversations now has Research Mode 'off' by default and has a Whitelist feature that lets certain sites (e.g., news sites, blogs, etc.) be automatically checked.  You can also just toggle Research Mode 'on' and every URL will be auto-searched.]

(More technical): Kiwi doesn't cache any personal info in localStorage or sync storage (which at least Chrome does not encrypt :< ). The api results are stored in a local variable within the scope of the extension. And the "history" is a hashed and padded blob.

[Version Note 1.1.8 - some of the search APIs were unavailable for several hours on 2015-8-16. this led to a poor user experience, so I have implemented several changes, chiefly: if a service is down - there will be a message notifying you of the network outages (which you can dismiss) -- and the rest of the results will flow in as they normally would.  :) phew, thanks for hanging around. i've tested this as well as I reasonably can, but if you notice any bugs, let me know at @spencenow on the twitters, thanks again!]

[Version Note 1.1.4 to existing users: the extension now has the option to also check for Product Hunt submissions! (You won't be opted-in automatically if you had it installed before 2015-8-14). This does require you to agree to new permissions because of the new API. Sorry for the inconvenience.]

PRIVACY POLICY - ADDED JULY 5, 2016
Kiwi uses 3rd-party APIs (Reddit, Algolia for HN, Product Hunt API [with Algolia Search for custom string searches] and Google News) to provide conversations about the URLs you are visiting while you surf.

By default, you (the Chrome extension user) must click the green “Research this Url” button while currently visiting a specific URL in order for Kiwi to research the conversations for it.  Research Mode can of course be toggled to "on", so Kiwi Conversations automatically checks for conversations (on Reddit, HN, Product Hunt, Google News). 

Whenever these services are queried, the requests are sent over HTTPS (an encrypted protocol).

You can toggle any of the specific APIs off/on in settings.

The results of these research results and other user-related URL history info is not persisted to local storage. Instead, this user data is stored in locally scoped variables of the extension.            

How to install Kiwi Conversations?

You could download the latest version crx file or older version files and install it.

Preview of Kiwi Conversations

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Reviews of kiwi conversations:

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Landon Walsh August 15th, 2015

So far so good. I've seen the Css broken just one or two times with super long urls, other than that everything works flawlessly. I'll keep this extension around and look forward to updates.

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D Housholder August 3rd, 2015

I have been using another extension called Reddit Check for over a year and it's very nice. I love finding discussion on random websites I find. This extension appears to be better made and has more features. It's nice to see discussion on HN too. I̶t̶ ̶d̶o̶e̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶ ̶r̶e̶l̶i̶a̶b̶l̶y̶.̶ ̶I̶ ̶c̶l̶i̶c̶k̶e̶d̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶b̶u̶n̶c̶h̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶l̶i̶n̶k̶s̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶H̶N̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶n̶t̶ ̶p̶a̶g̶e̶.̶ ̶R̶e̶d̶d̶i̶t̶ ̶c̶h̶e̶c̶k̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶ ̶f̶i̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶h̶a̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶p̶o̶s̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶r̶e̶d̶d̶i̶t̶ ̶b̶e̶f̶o̶r̶e̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶K̶i̶w̶i̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶.̶ ̶H̶o̶w̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶o̶s̶e̶ ̶l̶i̶n̶k̶s̶ ̶h̶a̶d̶ ̶o̶n̶l̶y̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶p̶o̶s̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶o̶n̶c̶e̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶h̶a̶d̶ ̶n̶o̶ ̶d̶i̶s̶c̶u̶s̶s̶i̶o̶n̶.̶ ̶S̶t̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶m̶s̶ ̶s̶t̶r̶a̶n̶g̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶s̶a̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶h̶a̶d̶ ̶n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶p̶o̶s̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶f̶o̶r̶e̶.̶ (EDIT: This has been fixed.) It was also unable to find youtube videos that had been posted before. Youtube is terrible at unique URLs, and I don't blame it. However Reddit Check is able to find most of the different places youtube videos have been posted. I found a link that had been posted to reddit hundreds of times. It only found 11 results. There was also an option for "fuzzy matches" which included a few more links to the exact same URL, but also links that had nothing to do with it. Reddit Check also has a problem where it only returns the first 25 results. Clicking on any of the links closes the menu, so you can't open many links in new tabs at once. This is also a problem with Reddit Check. It does not find http versions of https links. Also a problem with Reddit Check. Clicking on the "submit to reddit" option opened a submission page, but not with the URL in it. I tried to look at the code but it was all squished together. It does not appear possible to modify it anyway. Anyway none of these are dealbreakers. I will be using this extension alongside Reddit Check due to the extra features it has. I am concerned about sending so many requests to reddit every time I open a new tab though.

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Jyotirmoy Roy August 2nd, 2015

This is awesome. Loved the experience so far.

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